Northwest Passage
by Kryptaria
Summary: Seven years ago, Captain John Watson of the Canadian Forces Medical Service withdrew from society, seeking a simple, isolated life in the distant northern wilderness of Canada. Though he survives from one day to the next, he doesn't truly live until someone from his dark past calls in a favor and turns his world upside-down with the introduction of Sherlock Holmes. (Cont'd at AO3.)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This story will not be posted in its entirety on due to the rating system. There are parts of this story rated MA (explicit) that are essential to the plot of the story. If you wish to read this story in its entirety, please visit my site at . Sorry I can't put up a direct link.

* * *

**Friday, October 19**

Afternoon sunlight bathed the office with a dull gold hue. Outside, pools of shadow darkened the carefully tended lawn as broken clouds passed before the sun. It was five minutes past four, and Mycroft Holmes had put the British government on hold to take this very unwelcome, unwanted trip to the countryside.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes. There's no one else available here to take charge of your brother's care," Director Kullek said apologetically. He smoothed back thinning grey hair and fussed with his glasses, his weak smile never disappearing fully.

Normally, he was the embodiment of serene confidence, a man tailor-made to engender trust and a calm surety that anyone given into his care, no matter how troubled or ill, would be helped. His photograph had adorned clinic pamphlets and investment brochures since he'd taken over the board. Now, though, his expression was tight and nervous, not fearful but desperate. At once, Mycroft realized that there was no threat that he could bring to bear with sufficient force to change the director's mind.

"And what happened to Dr. Barnard?" Mycroft asked smoothly, not hiding the steel under his polite tone of voice.

"He, ah... he's in hospital, Mr. Holmes. Um." The glasses came off, twisted between pudgy fingers. "Suicide watch, actually."

Mycroft closed his eyes a moment too long to qualify as a blink. "Surely it wasn't overwork," he said flatly. "I was given to understand my brother was his only patient."

"No, sir. I mean, yes. Yes, he is. Was." Director Kullek bared his teeth again and shoved the glasses back into place, smudging one lens with his thumb. He huffed anxiously and pulled them off, turning his attention to rooting through his desk drawers. "Your brother's treatment is _technically_ complete, at least physiologically. Now it's just a matter of, um, controlling the addiction. There are fine therapists —"

"Yes. As Dr. Barnard was a 'fine therapist'," Mycroft interrupted sharply. He pressed his fingertips together and gave another slow, thoughtful blink. Really, he wasn't surprised. This was Sherlock's third run through rehab, and there was no evidence to point to any more of a success than the first two attempts.

Sherlock was racing towards a future that was nothing more than a blank wall, a spectacular crash and fireball, no survivors, and all the resources Mycroft had at his disposal had so far proved inadequate to the task of showing his brilliant, self-destructive brother that there was life beyond thirty. The worst part was that Mycroft _understood_. He knew what it was like to be trapped, overwhelmed, drowning in the sensory input, thoughts outpacing the world around him. But where Mycroft had channeled his energy into building his powerbase, Sherlock had floundered, never latching onto anything but his violin and a morbid interest in crime and death.

And then, he'd found drugs.

Mycroft had once asked Sherlock why he would risk destroying himself for artificial bliss. "You said you and I think faster than light," he'd explained in a casual, languid drawl. His eyes had been closed but moving rapidly behind the thin white lids, tracking the sensory overload brought on by the cocaine. "That's what this is, Mycroft. I can _be_ my thoughts. Try it yourself. You'll understand."

God help him, it had been tempting, but he'd resisted. Dragged Sherlock to yet another hospital. Sat with him through the nausea and paranoia and threats. Stayed with him through the shattering, when Sherlock's threats had turned to pleading and tears.

They'd come full circle again, though, and it was up to Mycroft to find a way to break Sherlock free. He could sign Sherlock out and bring him back home, but Sherlock would just run off again, back to London and his nightclubs and his dealers, or he could leave Sherlock here to terrorize the staff. Neither was an appealing option for anyone — least of all, Sherlock.

"Mr. Holmes... There is an excellent facility in Switzerland," Director Kullek hinted, going so far as to slide a glossy brochure across the desk. He'd had it ready in the drawer from which he'd taken the cloth he'd used to polish his glasses.

Mycroft hid a sigh. He had no reason to believe that a change of country would have any more success for his brother's recovery. It would take something far more radical to keep Sherlock off the path of self-destruction.

He put a hand on the brochure, prepared to push it back, to snap at the director and demand that he stop trying to pass off the responsibility and think of something, no matter how unconventional. And then he froze as _he_ stopped thinking in terms of rehabilitation centres and sobriety and started thinking like... well, like _himself_. Unconventional solutions were often the only real solutions at hand, and he was expert at manufacturing them when necessary.

Sherlock had turned to drugs out of boredom. Rehab was _boring_. So he turned his brilliance and willpower to the only available amusement: crushing the staff. None of them had the strength of character to withstand the force of Sherlock's personality. In fact, other than Mycroft himself, there was only one person he knew who might have the required resilience and strength of character to survive Sherlock at his worst.

* * *

The grey and white Kitfox Model IV made a slow dive towards the thin runway of autumn-gold grass. Only as the ultra-light aircraft banked and came around to proper alignment did the gravel strip become visible, barely a hundred feet wide and dotted with weeds that disappeared only near the double-wide trailer that served as an airport. Standing on the back porch of the airport, John Watson shaded his eyes with one hand and watched his plane touch down and brake. The prop slowed as the plane taxied to an almost perfect stop off to the side of the building.

He picked up his frame pack and rifle and headed for the plane, followed by Chuck from Fairlake's Grocery and Feed. The boy was carrying a sack of feed almost as big as he was. The feed was for John's nearest neighbor, Molly Hooper, to be bartered for a share of eggs from her henhouse. Molly lived thirteen kilometers downriver from John, who exchanged visits with her once every two weeks in good weather.

"Looks good," Mark shouted over the sound of the Kitfox's engine. He hopped down out of the pilot's seat and said, "I'll take care of the paperwork to update your registration. You can pick it up when you come back for your mail."

"Thanks, Mark." John passed him a fifty, hidden by a quick handshake. The stringent requirements for ultra-light aircraft tended to be only lightly enforced this far out in the middle of nowhere, which was how the residents liked it.

"Think you'll make it back before winter really sets in?"

John shrugged, keeping an eye on Chuck as he loaded the feed into the little cargo compartment behind the seats. "Might. If satellite cooperates, I'll send you an email."

"If not, see you next spring. You take care of yourself."

John smiled briefly. "You, too. Fuel up for me?"

"Got it," Mark agreed, and went to the fuel pump, leaving John to tip Chuck and secure the pack in the passenger seat. A day in town was about as much civilisation as John could tolerate. Now, all he wanted was to get back home.

Mark refuelled the ultra-light aircraft, charged the cost to John's card, and waved him off to the runway. He owned and ran the airport, acting as air traffic control, customs, and chief engineer. When John had inherited his cabin, he'd introduced himself to Mark with a gift of choice venison cuts and two days' help patching up the airport roof. In return, Mark didn't give John any shit and took care of John's paperwork.

In ten minutes, he was up in the sky, not entirely comfortable with the light, home-built frame that would do nothing to protect him in a crash. He'd never meant to be a pilot, but he'd never meant to be a lot of things. At his age, he was supposed to be in Toronto at a teaching hospital, or perhaps practicing in the States and getting rich off fat insurance companies, or maybe dead in the desert. Not living in the backwoods of Canada in a place so remote that he needed a plane or snowmobile to reach the nearest grocery store.

The radio crackled to life, startling him. "Charlie-India-One-Seven-Three, this is Fairlake tower, over," Mark said.

Baffled, John toggled on the mic and answered, "Fairlake, this is Charlie-India-One-Seven-Three. What's up, Mark?"

"Can you swing back 'round? Just got a message for you."

"Seriously?" John glanced out at the ridge of pine trees that hid the blue ribbon that was his highway home, upriver of Fairlake. The only thing he could imagine was that the army needed to get hold of him — possibly some issue with his disability payments — but that sort of thing could be handled through the mail. "What the hell?"

"Uh, says to tell you it's Python?" Mark said uncertainly.

John's hands clenched on the controls. His mouth went dry as he heard the radio crackle with static before a posh British voice promised the impossible: Rescue. Survival.

Numbly, John said, "Charlie-Seven-Three turning back to the runway. Request clearance for priority landing."

"Fairlake tower acknowledges, Charlie-Seven-Three. You are cleared to land. Drive safe, John."

Taking deep breaths, John keyed off the mic and eased the Kitfox around, circling wide and studying the brilliant, endless blue sky, so pale and different than the sky in his nightmares. Only when his hands were rock-steady did he turn fully and begin his descent back to Fairlake Airport.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sunday, October 21**

Nine hours on a plane — even in the luxury of a first class seat with internet access and personal service — was almost as bad a living hell as rehab, at least for Sherlock Holmes. Before leaving the clinic, he'd terrorised one of the doctors into giving him a grand total of four sleeping pills. He'd taken one every time he'd awakened for more than ten minutes to use the loo, but that still left him conscious long enough to determine that he should have insisted Mycroft provide a private jet. It would have added flying time due to the need to stop and refuel, but at least he wouldn't have been surrounded by idiots. Being rich enough to fly first-class was no guarantee of intelligence. Quite the opposite, in fact.

When he arrived at Calgary International Airport, he looked around with disdain. He'd been expecting something... more. He'd traveled through Europe, of course, and had developed certain notions of what constituted a proper airport. For an international airport, Calgary had a very definite improvised feel.

Of course, compared to the next airport, Calgary International was practically Heathrow.

From Calgary, he took a small, sixteen-passenger jet to the ominously named Little Prairie Airport, which was hardly an airport at all. It was a single terminal with no jetbridges. Instead, passengers disembarked via a wheeled staircase, and then encouraged to wait around on the tarmac so they could pick up their luggage as it was offloaded. It saved the trouble of waiting at the baggage carousel.

As he waited for his bags, he looked around with growing horror at the thought of being trapped here. The air traffic control tower was three storeys high, little more than a room perched atop a cement post. There were two runways and one single-storey L-shaped concrete building with small windows. The airport wasn't fenced off, though the cows were. At least, he assumed they were cows. Possibly they were bulls. He'd never been tasked to investigate a crime involving either, so he had no idea what they were. For all he knew, they might even be yaks.

He circled completely around and didn't see a single building taller than the control tower. There wasn't a single nightclub or bar in sight — not one where he'd be caught dead, anyway — and he doubted that even his highest high would make anyone here worth the effort of seducing. And this _wasn't_ his final destination.

He had more baggage than any three other passengers: a carry-on suitcase, a wheeled suitcase, a garment bag, his laptop bag, and his violin case. He'd been told to pack for an extended stay overseas. He'd envisioned Switzerland and had, in fact, spent three days researching the various ski resorts he might want to visit.

Now, seeing the grim reality of his future, he decided he'd have to find a way to escape Canada (assuming that was where he actually was) and get back to England so he could have his brother assassinated.

As he stood on the tarmac, wondering how to handle all of his luggage, a helpful steward-type ran over. At least, Sherlock assumed he was a steward. No one would willingly wear that much navy blue polyester unless it was a uniform.

Sherlock kept his laptop bag and violin case, as they were his most valuable possessions. "Here," he said, handing off the carry-on bag. He waved at the garment bag and suitcase, adding, "Those are also mine."

"Uh, you, uh... Are you Sherlock Holmes? Really? That's a name?" the young man asked, consulting a small notepad taken from his breast pocket.

"No, it's a title."

The man stared at him.

Sherlock closed his eyes, rubbing at the back of his stiff neck with his free hand. "Yes, that's me. What is it?" he demanded.

"Your plane's here. The other way," he said, pointing away from the concrete bunker that passed for a local airport.

"Obviously, given that I just _arrived_ on this plane," Sherlock said, gesturing at the little jet without any affection at all.

"Not that one. _That_ one," he said, ducking his head to drop under the pointy end of the jet to indicate a little toy plane a short distance away. It was grey on top and blue underneath with C-I173 painted in black on the tail. Sherlock blinked at it a couple of times before he realised there was a man standing by it, leaning on the wing, giving it a sense of scale. So it wasn't _quite_ miniature, but it was definitely close.

"That toy isn't a plane," he observed numbly as the words 'your plane' sank in. When Mycroft had proposed this international trip, Sherlock had agreed only with the assurance that he wasn't going to be subjected to another round of tedious rehab. Now, walking towards the little plane, Sherlock wondered if Mycroft's plan was simply to eliminate him altogether in a convenient crash in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps this was Mycroft's way of provoking an international diplomatic incident with Canada?

The man leaning against the wing turned to regard Sherlock through metallic brown sunglasses. He wore a heavy leather jacket and faded jeans, ragged cuffs trailing threads over worn work boots. He was six inches shorter than Sherlock but at least a stone heavier, all of it solid muscle, judging by the way the jeans fit him. He didn't spend his money to replace clothes that were still serviceable, but he bought quality: the Oakley sunglasses would have cost almost £600 back in London and the jacket, battered as it was, looked to have once been designer.

Anywhere else, Sherlock would have immediately tried to determine his sexual orientation. He was ruggedly attractive, far from the usual type, male or female, who would've caught Sherlock's eye, but the change made him that much more interesting. But Sherlock wasn't one to allow first impressions to fool him. Whoever he was, he chose to live _here,_ which indicated some deep flaw somewhere in him. Beyond the attractive façade, he was probably boring beyond all reasonable expectation, and Sherlock had high standards even for one-night stands.

"Captain?" Sherlock's steward called out.

"To be a proper captain, one must have a proper airplane," Sherlock muttered.

"Christ, how much luggage did you bring?" the so-called 'captain' asked sharply, looking Sherlock up and down before surveying his belongings.

"I have absolutely no intention of taxing that _thing's_ cargo capacity with anything I treasure more than my socks," Sherlock answered.

Instead of getting angry, the captain barked out a laugh. "Suit yourself," he said, fishing around in his front pocket for a moment. He pulled out a roll of brightly-coloured money, peeled a blue bill off, and handed it to Sherlock's steward, who let go of the luggage to take it.

"Thanks, captain." The steward grinned, and trotted off at a gesture from the captain.

"It's six hundred fifty kilometers back home, give or take. You probably don't want to walk."

"_Six_ _hundred_ — We're already _nowhere,_" Sherlock said, resisting the urge to put down his violin case so he could cross his arms.

Turning, the man climbed up into the little aircraft. His jacket rode up just enough to show a black holster at his left hip — most likely a .45, though Sherlock would need to see more to be certain. What he needed it for here, Sherlock couldn't imagine, unless the cows were prone to outbursts of violence.

"You coming?" the captain asked once he was settled into his seat.

Sherlock looked back at the concrete airport and the bland blue sky and the gentle hills that made it seem like the _nothingness_ stretched out in all directions, forever. He thought about being trapped here even for as long as it would take to fly back to the relative civilisation of Calgary International Airport. He thought about making it that far only to discover Mycroft had alerted customs or border control or some other authority that Sherlock wasn't permitted to return to London.

Slowly, he turned to look back at the captain with his expensive jacket and gun and tight jeans. Sherlock wanted to strangle Mycroft for exiling him like this. He wanted to be back home, lost in the London night, with his parties and partners and drugs, anything to scrape away the dullness that had rotted his brain since business had turned slow.

He took a deep breath and carried his violin case to the airplane. The cargo area behind the side-by-side seats was tiny; Sherlock would have to carry the laptop and violin in his lap if he had any hope of fitting everything in, and his suitcase might not make it at all.

After a moment's consideration, he set the violin case and laptop on the empty seat. The carry-on bag fit nicely behind the seats, and he draped the garment bag over it. There was no way to fit the suitcase, even with a blowtorch and a prybar, so he flipped it over, opened the case, and started scooping out his neatly folded clothes to pile on top of the garment bag.

Instead of protesting, the captain laughed.

* * *

It took twenty minutes to escape the crowded airspace around Little Prairie and get back into the wild, heading north for Fairlake. Without weighing the cargo that His Majesty had brought along, John wasn't willing to risk running out of fuel over the trees. He'd stop to top off the fuel tank at Fairlake. Remembering his lessons, he kept a wary eye on the fuel gauge and didn't take any chances with wind or speed.

At least his passenger seemed content to stay quiet, though he wasn't obviously admiring the view. Once they leveled off to cruising altitude, he rearranged the luggage on his lap and at his feet, freeing his hands so he could get at a mobile taken from the inside pocket of his jacket.

John frowned as he glanced over, only then realising that he hadn't seen another jacket. "Holmes said you're staying —"

"_I'm_ Holmes. Sherlock Holmes," he interrupted. He gave John a sharp, narrow-eyed look that was probably meant to be intimidating. "Consider it a reminder that you have yet to introduce yourself."

With a snort, he answered, "John Watson. The _other_ Holmes said you were staying through the end of the year."

Holmes' only answer was a huff through flared nostrils as he turned his attention back to his mobile. "We'll see about that," he muttered more to himself than to John.

John shrugged and went back to flying. The Kitfox was small and cheap and maneuverable, but it was also a constant bitch to fine-tune, without anything even resembling autopilot functions. John could have bought something fancier, but he saw no reason to bother. The Kitfox worked just fine for him. Other than his trial flight and a couple of quick trips to town with Molly, he'd never carried any passengers.

In fact, he realized that Sherlock was going to be the first outsider to see inside his house since he'd taken ownership. Years ago, he'd had architects and engineers and surveyors out, and the building crew had spent a month living onsite in tents, but those days were over. Even the propane and diesel delivery pilots who flew in twice a year saw nothing but the exterior tanks. Molly was his only occasional visitor, and she didn't stay longer than an afternoon.

The thought made John's chest go tight and his fingers itch, but he took a deep breath and concentrated on the sensitive controls. He owed Python, and if it took an unwanted houseguest to clear that debt, so be it it.

The fact that the houseguest in question was gorgeous complicated matters, but John would find a way to live with it.

So they flew in silence that was surprisingly comfortable, broken only near the end of the first leg, when John keyed the mic. "Fairlake tower, this is Charlie-India-One-Seven-Three requesting weather report and landing clearance to refuel."

"Charlie-India-One-Seven-Three, this is Fairlake tower. Weather is cloudy with light snow, decent visibility. You are clear to land whenever you like. How was Little Prairie? Over."

"The usual, Mark. Glad to be home. Should be wheels-down in twenty."

"I'll put up the coffee, John. Fairlake tower out."

John glanced over at Sherlock, who was staring at him so intently that John wondered if the man was some sort of telepath or something, trying to read his mind. Hadn't the CIA experimented with something like that in the seventies? Telling himself that he'd been reading too many stupid conspiracy theory thrillers, he asked, "Something wrong?"

"Where exactly are we going?" Sherlock asked in that posh baritone of his. With a voice like that, John would be content to listen to him read the phone book.

"Fairlake," John said, reminding himself that he was supposed to be piloting, not ogling his passenger. "The house is another forty minutes' flying time northish of the airport."

"You _fly_ home. Don't you have a car?"

John laughed and shook his head. "No roads up to my property. You can take a boat, if the draft is shallow enough, but I don't enjoy rowing." He resisted the urge to rub his shoulder and kept his hands on the controls instead. "The only other option is a quad or snowmobile."

Instead of answering, Sherlock turned his attention back to his mobile. "I haven't had signal for an hour," he said darkly.

"Not out here," John agreed.

* * *

If Little Prairie had been tiny, Fairlake was... horrifying. The runway was nothing but a gravel strip next to a flimsy-looking mobile home. "Where's the tower?" Sherlock asked once the tiny, flimsy plane was on the ground (and the less said about the landing, the better).

John laughed briefly. "No tower here, unless you count hunting stands."

After a landing that jolted every bone in Sherlock's body, they circled at the end of the runway and drove towards an open-sided hangar that looked like a carport. There were three small planes and a helicopter parked nearby. All four looked more sturdy than John's aircraft, and Sherlock wondered what it would cost to buy one for the duration of his stay. Not that he knew how to fly.

And then, there was the snow.

Snow in London was nothing but an inconvenience, forcing Sherlock to change his habits of dress and behaviour to accommodate cold that even he couldn't disregard. Snow caused traffic delays and ruined carefully planned outfits and encouraged people to stay inside.

Snow here was thick and slow and blindingly white even with the heavy cloud cover that turned day into dusk. Sherlock shivered as he watched it build up on the windscreen, but it didn't look like the chill would be knife-sharp and biting. It forced his mind uncomfortably deep into the past, to memories of vacationing in Europe with the family — a proper family with a mother and father, instead of this bitter half-family that remained to him and Mycroft. He thought of fires and warm blankets and scientific texts pinched from his father's shelves, listening while his parents spoke in a polyglot of Russian and French and German, as if thinking Sherlock couldn't understand all three of those languages by the time he was seven.

"You need to get out, stretch your legs?" John asked as he turned off the plane's engine.

Sherlock almost said yes, because he felt as though he'd been trapped in a coffin. (That had happened to him once, but it had been an accident caused by enthusiastic sex that had tipped an unsteady bookshelf across the coffin lid, rather than anything more nefarious.) Then he spotted the man walking towards them — older, smoker, accustomed to the cold, friendly smile, casual posture — and realised that if he got out, he'd be expected to socialise, which could draw out this unwanted visit even longer than was necessary to refuel.

"No."

"Suit yourself." John exited the aircraft in a blast of cold air that didn't warm up even after he closed the door. Sherlock wrapped his perfectly good overcoat around himself and shoved his gloved hands against his body, watching as John and the other man — Mark, presumably — chatted while refuelling the plane. Mark had handed John two paper cups of coffee, the sight of which was nearly enough to lure Sherlock out.

After an interminable eight minutes, John binned his coffee and carried the other cup to the plane. He climbed into the pilot's seat and offered the cup to Sherlock. "Sure you're all right?"

"Fine." Sherlock sipped the coffee and found it a vile brew laced with artificial creamer, but it was hot and right now he'd drink diesel fuel if it would help him warm up. Even his spine felt cold.

He finished the cup as John finished checking gauges and chatting with Mark, who was answering with a handheld radio. Then John was steering the plane around the others, to the far end of the runway.

"Almost home," John said, sounding relieved as the plane accelerated towards the not-so-distant trees.

Sherlock glanced at him, noting the way his shoulders had relaxed. The tight lines at the corners of his mouth had all but disappeared, and Sherlock revised his estimate of John's age downwards by five years. That was curious. He'd been self-confident and comfortable in dealing with the baggage handler at Little Prairie and with Mark, but had maintained a level of tension that apparently wasn't natural. Was he relaxed by the thought of going home, as some people were, or was it something else?

Whatever the answer, Sherlock would probably have it figured out by the end of the night. But given the crushing boredom that was the alternative, he welcomed even this insignificant little mystery.

* * *

Anyone meeting John at Fairlake would perhaps assume 'home' meant a single-room cabin or kit-built hut, the type of place surrounded by disassembled vehicles and unwanted furniture and half-feral dogs running wild. The reality was far more comfortable. The cabin was small but warm and well-appointed and everything John needed.

The property had been in John's family for generations, remnant of an old mineral claim his great-grandfather had staked. At various times, it had been used for gold panning, hunting, and fishing, but it hadn't actually been developed until John's father retired from his medical practice just after John had enlisted. The dirt airstrip had already been present, and Dad had added a hangar for the family's old Beechcraft. John had traded the six-seater aircraft for the Kitfox and the services of a builder willing to construct a winter-proof shed for his snowmobile and quad.

The cabin itself had four habitable rooms, a small attic, and a storage cellar that allowed access to the pipes for repairs. It was built of tightly-chinked logs, double-pane windows, and a sturdy stone roof. John had upgraded the power and heating with redundancies — batteries, both diesel and propane generator systems, and solar panels for those rare days when the sun was out. The fuel tanks were safely stored in a shed well away from the house.

After landing, John taxied the plane as close to the house as he could get. He left the engine idling and looked back at the pile of clothing filling the cargo compartment. When Sherlock had emptied and abandoned his suitcase back in Little Prairie, John had been amused. Now, John said, "Need me to get you a bag or something to carry all that inside?"

Sherlock's eyes narrowed. He nodded absently, still looking at the property as though plotting an escape route. John hoped he wouldn't have to go chasing the Londoner through the woods, ending with both of them fighting off pneumonia.

"Right. Come on, then," he finally said, and exited the plane, heading through the light snow for the front porch. He pushed open the door and entered without bothering to turn on the lights, going right for the fireplace.

"You don't lock your door?" Sherlock asked, momentarily silhouetted against the iron grey sky before he closed the door.

"A polite visitor will knock. Anyone else would just break a window if they couldn't get in through a door. Do you know what a bitch it is to get new windows out here?" John answered, not mentioning that he welcomed anyone to try, as long as he was home. And if he wasn't home, he really didn't care. His few valuables were in the bedroom safe, which would take explosives to open without the proper combination.

He knelt down by the hearth and struck a long match. He'd laid the fire before going out. Now, the firelighter caught at once, sending licks of flame out along the kindling.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Which 'this'?" John kept his eyes on the fire, enjoying the tingling warmth that touched his face. "Building a fire?"

"Obvious," Sherlock said dryly. "Why _me?_ And what exactly am I meant to be doing here?"

John shrugged, reaching in to set a split log in place. The kindling crackled under the weight, but enough of it had caught that he wasn't in danger of smothering the young flames. "Whatever you want." He glanced back and saw Sherlock standing near one of the bookshelves that lined the walls, though the light was too faint for him to read the titles. "Do you fish?"

"Do I — _No,_" Sherlock answered as though horrified.

John snorted, laying a couple more logs onto the iron grate before he stood. He brushed down his jacket, absently verifying the reassuring presence of the .45 at his hip. "Why _are_ you here, then?" he asked, picking his way around the furniture to the kitchen. A riverstone archway separated the living room and kitchen, where a potbelly stove served for both cooking and heating.

Sherlock followed, stopping in the archway. "What did Mycroft tell you?"

The evasive answer made John glance back, but the hazy grey light coming in through the windows wasn't enough to give him any details. "Doesn't really matter, does it? You're a grown man, not a child."

Sherlock went very quiet and still — not dangerously, though Mycroft had warned John that Sherlock had a potentially violent temper. No, this felt surprised, almost vulnerable, rather than threatening, and John began to wonder if he'd said the wrong thing.

Finally, John broke the silence by handing over his frame pack. He kept it in the kitchen for when he flew to town to pick up groceries and supplies. "That should work well enough. Get moving. I want to get the plane tucked away before it gets too dark," he said, and went to light the bedroom fireplace.

* * *

The glowing fire in the living room gave off enough illumination that Sherlock was tempted to stay and examine the room in hopes of getting some hint at what made John Watson tick, but he had a feeling that he was meant to retrieve his belongings on his own. Going out in the snow was bad enough. Going out in the snow and pitch darkness was that much worse.

So he ventured back outside, bringing his violin and laptop safely to the living room, where he opened the violin case to allow the instrument to acclimate to the temperature and humidity. He wouldn't touch it for another day, but simply having it with him was a comfort. One more trip was sufficient for him to bring in everything else. Abandoning his suitcase at the other tiny airport was inconvenient, but Mycroft had provided the luggage, so he couldn't be arsed to actually care.

John was back outside, presumably putting the plane back into its garage or hangar or wherever he kept it out of the weather, leaving Sherlock to make himself at home. He found a bedroom off the living room — the _only_ bedroom, which gave him pause for a moment as he wondered just what Mycroft was expecting him to accomplish on this little visit. Was he meant to... to what? To seduce John? Was this one of Mycroft's games of intrigue and espionage?

He leaned against the bedroom wall and pressed his hands against his eyes, hating the way his brain felt sluggish. The world was screaming at him, filling his hyper-aware senses with input, but he couldn't process it all. Simple deductions, such as reading the attendant at the last airport, still came easily to him, but John seemed to be a more complex creature.

Perhaps Mycroft wanted John dead, and instead of sending an assassin after him, he'd sent his unstable, hair-trigger brother. It was far easier to explain death with a recovering addict's violent temper. Perhaps he simply expected Sherlock to expertly hide the body or leave it out for the bears to eat.

"Sherlock?"

His head whipped around at the call that sounded like it came from the living room. Peering through the bedroom doorway, he saw John, now holding an oil lamp, looking around in confusion. His expression cleared when he met Sherlock's eyes. "There you are. I should have asked while we were in town. Any food allergies? I'm going to start dinner."

"What? No." Abandoning the backpack and carry-on case in the bedroom, Sherlock followed John into the living room and around to the kitchen.

John had removed his heavy leather jacket, revealing a physique that confirmed Sherlock's suspicions that he was in very good, very appealing shape. He was still wearing his gun at his left hip. The leather holster was old and worn but well-maintained. Seconds dripped by, glacially slow, as Sherlock took in the comfortable way John carried the weapon, the fact that he was armed in his own house but didn't bother to lock the doors, the neat-but-worn clothing, his stance, and his hair, which looked two months grown out of a buzz-cut. Military, then, which made Sherlock again wonder about Mycroft's motivation for sending him here.

"If you want the bedroom, that's fine," John said, his back turned to Sherlock. He set a metal kettle on top of the round-bodied iron stove before he moved to the counter, where he hung the oil lantern on a wrought iron hook over the sink. There was a conventional light fixture overhead and a switch by the living room archway, but John ignored both.

"You _do_ have electricity, don't you?" Sherlock asked with growing concern. He could live without his mobile, but not without his laptop and email.

John nodded. "Main generator, backup generator, batteries, and an inverter system. I try to keep my power use to a minimum. I'll show you how to use the satellite uplink once I'm done preparing dinner."

For a few minutes, Sherlock listened to the sound of John chopping something with quick, sure motions. The kitchen was an odd contrast between the primitive (the stove and oil lamp) and luxurious (expert carpentry, wrought iron fixtures and handles, deep freezer). There was little in the way of decoration and nothing at all to hint at the homeowner's personality, though — no photos or trinkets or even decoratively embroidered tea towels.

Sherlock considered a cigarette, needing the chemical boost to help him think, before he realised with something like horror that they were miles away from the nearest store. Once his supply ran out, he'd be entirely without nicotine. He looked again at the ice chest and a door that he presumed led to a pantry and tried to calculate how often John would be forced to go to town for supplies. Even with two of them eating their way through the provisions, it could be _weeks_.

His brain caught up with him, then, and he asked, "Where are you going to sleep? That's your bedroom, isn't it?"

Without turning around, John shrugged. "Living room is fine for me. I don't sleep much."

"Nor do I."

John's left hand paused, and he looked over his shoulder. "Just don't sneak up on me while I'm sleeping. I'm... not used to having anyone else here."

Sherlock studied John's face, for the first time reading guarded shame in his expression. He considered and dismissed a few leading questions, thinking that he had plenty of time to indulge his curiosity. If he really was trapped here, there was no point in rushing to solve the mystery of why he was here and who John Watson really was.

* * *

Dinner was a simple stir fry of venison and mushrooms served with pan-fried cornbread. Sherlock took his tea over-sweetened, perhaps to make up for the lack of milk or proper cream. John didn't bother suggesting the powdered stuff he had in the pantry. It was clear that Sherlock was a creature of cities and civilization just as John had been a few years earlier, before he'd decided to retire to the forest.

Outside, the snow had died down. John did the washing, set the dishes to dry, and said, "I'm going for a walk. Make yourself at home. Try not to use all the hot water, if you shower. It's only a forty-gallon heater."

Sherlock stared at him. John bit back a laugh, all too easily able to picture Sherlock as the type to indulge in long, hot showers. Did his brother even know how John lived? Was exiling Sherlock to live primitively for the winter some sort of subtle attack in an ongoing war of sibling rivalry between the two of them?

After a moment, John left the kitchen. He put on his jacket, gloves, and hat before he went outside into the cold. The temperature hovered just below freezing; as happened sometimes, the end of the snowfall brought a degree or two of warmth. If the weather held through tomorrow, the inch-deep layer of snow would be melted in sunny spots by midday.

Every night, he walked the property, checking on the fuel tanks, the small hangar, the shed, and the windows and roof and structure of the cabin. Sometimes, he went to watch the river, but not often. Growing up, he'd rarely seen more than a handful of stars at a time, thanks to a childhood spent under the light pollution of Detroit, Toronto, and other cities. He'd fallen in love with the infinite night sky, but that love had shattered one night in the desert. Now, he felt safer in the dark and shadows, as though the light of the Milky Way somehow stripped away his defences, leaving him exposed and vulnerable.

It didn't escape him that Sherlock's pale blue eyes felt like that starlight. Just thinking of them made him shiver in a way that might have been good and might have been bad. Sherlock was handsome and interesting and that voice — Christ, _that voice_ — but John didn't let anyone in his head, and Sherlock seemed just the type to pry where he wasn't wanted.

Even after everything he'd experienced, John tried to be a good, fair person. He minimised his interactions with others because of the anger and pain lurking just beneath the calm surface of his mind. He could barely remember the John Watson of his school days, when he'd never had trouble finding dates, when he'd lived surrounded by friends and acquaintances, never alone for longer than it took to cross his dormitory or walk from one class to the next, and even then, he'd usually had someone at his side.

He finished his check, verifying that the emergency supplies were packed in the cargo compartments of both the ATV and snowmobile in the garage beyond the hangar. Tomorrow, he'd double the rations and add another water filter, in case he had to bug out and take Sherlock with him. It was ridiculous to think anything would drive him to actually _use_ his emergency plans, but just having them was a reassurance that he needed desperately.

A bit reluctantly, he went back inside and hung up his outerwear by the door. The walk had refreshed him, and the warmth of the fires encouraged a drowsy, languid mood to creep over him, but he still felt restless. His days were usually filled with bursts of physical labor — mostly chopping firewood — and quiet periods of intense mental concentration. Spending the entire day in flight had been strangely taxing.

The hot water heater in the central utility closet was gurgling. With a sigh, John went to pound on the door between the kitchen and bathroom. "You're almost out of hot water!" he warned loudly enough to be heard over the shower. When the water turned off a few seconds later, John smiled to himself and went to his desk.

Though he had an old laptop in one of the drawers, the centre of the desk was occupied by a manual typewriter he'd found in a pawn shop almost ten years ago. To the left, he had a stack of blank paper; to the right, a much smaller stack of typed pages. Below the desk, he kept a basket for discarded sheets that he could later use to start fires.

He'd stopped in the middle of his last sheet. Now, he ran a finger over the typed lines, feeling the impression of the letters without actually reading the words, letting the story spin out in his mind. He considered how the different plot threads twisted together, weaving into a pattern that would hopefully go unrecognized until the climax. He was only thirty pages in, and already the characters were coming to life in his head, adding little nuances of behaviour that would help bring them to life.

Closing his eyes, he focussed his attention on the next scene, listening to the voices in his head. When he found the perfect place to begin, he set his hands on the raised keys and began to type.

* * *

Sherlock wasn't particularly modest, but he was definitely motivated by some level of comfort. He'd brought pyjamas and a dressing gown into the small bathroom and dressed quickly, though the room retained warmth surprisingly well despite having two doors — one into the kitchen, one into the bedroom. Once he was dressed, he brought his travel clothes into the bedroom, half-listening to a repetitive clattering sound that was familiar but not immediately identifiable.

The bedroom was furnished with a surprisingly self-indulgent king-sized bed, though there were only enough pillows for one occupant. A quick look inside the tall dresser showed that John's taste in clothes was consistent: practical, well-made, purchased without a hint of concern for fashion. More interesting was the gun safe next to the dresser and even taller, built to hold not just handguns but rifles. Possibly artillery or machine guns, judging by the size.

Perhaps John was one of those militia types hiding out in the wilderness to await the collapse of civilisation? But no, from what Sherlock understood, they usually locked their doors and lived in walled compounds. Not tidy little cabins full of packed bookshelves and not much else, with no photographs or pictures or any hint of personality.

Finally, Sherlock followed the sound out into the living room, where an oil lamp cast a soft white glow on John, who was bent over an old-fashioned manual typewriter. His expression was one of fierce concentration, though by the way his shoulders tensed, Sherlock knew John was absolutely aware of his presence.

Quietly, Sherlock crossed to the armchair by the fire and sat down. Like the rest of the furniture in the cabin, it was a wood frame with cushions, though it was surprisingly comfortable. A glance showed that John hadn't disturbed Sherlock's violin or laptop bag. Sherlock was momentarily tempted to play, but he reminded himself that if he damaged the violin, the nearest trustworthy luthier was probably thousands of miles away.

So he closed his eyes and began reviewing and cataloguing the events of the past twenty-four hours before focusing on John, committing to memory every detail he'd observed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Monday, October 22**

Sherlock opened his eyes to warm shadows lit only by a faint glow of banked coals. The window might as well have been painted black, the darkness beyond was so all-encompassing. For a few minutes that stretched into timelessness, he simply lay there, allowing his senses to report on the newness of his situation. The air itself tasted ashy and alive, free of the chemical odour of London. It was different, though not unpleasantly so.

For now, the novelty of his situation was enough to occupy his mind, especially with his thought processes slow and rusty. The enforced isolation of rehab had fragmented his intellect. Now that he was free, he could take the necessary time to rebuild himself. Stimulants — cocaine, nicotine, caffeine — would help, but not as much as simply being away from the worthless so-called doctors and nurses with their incessant questions about 'feelings' and insistence upon 'group therapy', as if increasing the number of idiots in a room would somehow raise the collective IQ.

Irritation at his memories drove Sherlock out of bed. He put on a dressing gown over his pyjamas and tried not to think about how he'd react if there was no coffee to be had.

Sherlock stopped, one hand on the door that let out to the living room. What if there was no coffee? What if Mycroft's idea of Sherlock's continuing rehabilitation included some sort of healthy-living initiative?

If that was the case, he'd have no choice but to treat John as a potential hostile and make his escape. Or to steal John's gun and shoot himself.

John was awake, still dressed in yesterday's clothes, rising from the couch as Sherlock entered the living room. He stood stiffly, as if his back hurt, and the darkness around his eyes implied he'd slept poorly. He looked around, quick and wary, before focussing back on Sherlock. "Something wrong?"

Interesting. Not 'good morning' or whatever greeting was appropriate at this hour. Sherlock shook his head and asked, "Is there coffee? Or tea?"

John exhaled, some of the tension bleeding out of his posture. "Beans are in the pantry, second shelf down, green canister. Grinder is mounted to the inside of — Hell, I'll do it," he said with a sigh, scrubbing his hands over his face as he headed towards the kitchen.

Sherlock followed and sat down at the small table. There were two chairs, though only one had previously been at the table. John had brought the other one in from the porch last night, after brushing spiderwebs out from the underside. Like everything else, the table and chairs were well-crafted and sturdy, expensive but not fashionable.

"Was the bed comfortable for you?" John asked as he crouched in front of the stove and built up the fire he'd banked earlier.

"It's fine. Better than the couch was for you."

John glanced at him. "It's fine," he repeated, arranging two split logs in the belly of the stove before he closed the door. "I always keep a full kettle on to save time." He unnecessarily gestured at the kettle atop the stove before he went to the pantry.

_Why do you live like this?_ The question was on the tip of his tongue, but he held back, preferring to find the answer some other way. He listened to the sound of coffee beans pouring into a metallic container of some kind.

"Come over here. Let me show you how to use the grinder," John said, looking out from behind the pantry door. Sherlock rose and went to the pantry. He was unsurprised to see the shelves were stocked with cans and sealed jars, with several plastic tubs on the floor. "Raw beans are in a canvas bag. I roast once or twice a week, and they go in here," he said, tapping a green canister on the shelf. He turned to a grinder mounted to the inside of the door. "Dry goods grinder. It can be used for anything — wheat, spices, whatever — but I mostly use it for coffee."

"Is electricity so scarce here?" Sherlock asked as John worked the crank to turn the simple mechanism. Coffee grounds fell into a tall, narrow copper pot resting on a small shelf below the crank.

"I prefer as few fuel deliveries as possible. It's a redundant system — solar and a backup generator to power the batteries. The water heater, bathroom power, deep freezer, and refrigerator are always on, but everything else is manual — washing machine, computer, satellite, that sort of thing. There's a radio in the attic that will reach as far as Fairlake, in an emergency." He picked up the pot and brushed past Sherlock on the way to the counter.

"Did you design the system?" Sherlock asked, trying to hide the skepticism in his voice. John didn't strike him as an engineer.

John laughed softly and shook his head. "No, I hired a consulting firm to set it all up. I can handle basic maintenance, but for anything else — the propane lines, for example — I call in a specialist. Did you want to see the specs?" he offered.

Surprised by the offer, Sherlock nodded. "I'd like that, yes."

"Watch the water. When it boils, fill the pot," he said, and left the kitchen.

* * *

The house plans were in the safe, along with a two legal hunting rifles, two shotguns, three not-so-legal handguns, a very illegal machine gun, and a single sniper rifle that John could possibly explain away as a bear-defence weapon. He knelt on the floor and opened the bottom drawer of the safe, where he kept the fireproof documents file box. He unlocked the box and rifled through the files — insurance papers, identification and passport, military service record, school transcripts, certificates, property deed — to the folded-up blueprints and engineering reports near the back.

This had to be the urge to show off. He was proud of what he'd accomplished. The desire to share his accomplishments was only natural, even for him. Perhaps especially for him.

He wasn't a recluse by nature, but by circumstance. As he locked everything back away, he shivered, remembering how he'd nearly shot Sherlock as an intruder — an _enemy_ — before his sleep-fogged mind identified him as a house guest. Mycroft Holmes was the only reason John was alive. He wasn't about to repay that debt by killing his younger brother.

He brought the paperwork into the kitchen and turned on the overhead light so Sherlock could read the blueprints more easily. The coffee chased away the last of his fatigue, and by the time dawn's light turned the outside world from black to a pale, foggy white, John felt almost human again. He'd had nearly five hours of sleep, which wasn't too bad, at least for him.

Figuring he should play the role of host, he asked, "Was there anything you wanted to see?"

"Is there anything _to_ see?" Sherlock countered.

John shrugged. "River and forest, mostly, if you like that sort of thing. We could take the quad and go visit Molly."

"Molly?"

"Lives downriver, about thirteen kilometers away. I was going to go see her yesterday, but..." He gestured at Sherlock. "She'll have fresh eggs for us, maybe some chicken, if any of them are ready for slaughter."

"Chicken," Sherlock repeated.

John laughed and gathered up the blueprints and engineering specs. "If not, you're welcome to stay here. I'll go shave and change. Be ready to leave in a half hour, if you want," he said, and went to go lock everything back up in the safe.

* * *

Faced with the choice between isolation in the remote house and going _anywhere,_ Sherlock chose the latter. He had no idea what John meant by 'we could take the quad' but assumed that a suit was hardly appropriate dress. In fact, most of his clothing was worthless here. Damn Mycroft for not warning him.

He had packed two pairs of jeans: one black and tight, meant for clubbing, and one blue and artfully torn, meant for seducing. The blue pair won out as being marginally more comfortable, so he tossed them on the bed and left the black ones in the suitcase. Other than T-shirts meant for sleep, he'd brought only button-downs; plain white was the closest thing he had to informal. He was clearly going to need to go shopping — assuming there were any stores anywhere in Canada besides airport duty free shops, something he was beginning to doubt.

He wasn't just going to kill Mycroft. He was going to kill Mycroft slowly, with great attention to detail.

John emerged from the bathroom without warning, clad only in a towel wrapped around his hips. He carried his holster and clothes tucked under one arm. Sherlock began to take in the view before he felt his lungs go cold, his throat tightening to trap his breath.

John's chest was covered in scars, the worst being a deep pucker of keratin just below his left clavicle — the poorly treated remnant of an old bullet wound. Thinner lines were from knives, and shiny white patches showed where he'd been burned, leaving barely a square inch of his torso unmarked.

This wasn't Sherlock's first time seeing such damage. He'd just never seen the victim still on his feet and breathing.

Almost immediately, John turned his back and went to the closet in the corner. "Sorry," he muttered over the sound of wire hangers being shoved out of the way.

The bullet wound was mirrored on his back, though it was a starry web of white lines radiating out from a dull red centre, showing the exit path of the bullet. Sherlock tried not to stare, because he didn't want to follow the conclusions his brain was already drawing. Injured in battle. Tortured. Immediately left active duty to isolate himself here in the middle of the forest.

Suddenly uncomfortable with the picture building in his imagination, Sherlock turned away and continued to dress. Behind him, he heard John approach, open a drawer, rifle through the contents, and then close it. He left for the living room without dressing, perhaps preferring a minimum of privacy, after how Sherlock had been staring. He couldn't be self-conscious, or he would have dressed in the bathroom — or perhaps he hadn't thought Sherlock would be in the bedroom.

Before, Sherlock had been curious about John simply because the alternative was to rot from boredom. Now, he _needed_ to know what had happened, and for the first time since he'd been trapped in rehab, he felt his mind go sharp and focussed as he came alive.

When John had landed his miniature deathtrap of a plane at this remote cabin, Sherlock had expected crushing, stifling, mind-destroying boredom — not the mystery of John Watson.

* * *

Between the quad's loud engine and the rattling cargo trailer, conversation was impossible, which suited John just fine. He'd been tempted to leave as soon as he was dressed, but he thought that abandoning Sherlock for the day would just make things more awkward between them. Of course, that had been _before_ Sherlock had climbed onto the quad behind John, a position that forced them close together, with Sherlock's hands on John's hips to help him balance.

Telling himself not to think about the past was no help. He was a damned idiot. He should have at least put on a T-shirt before going into the bedroom, but he was so used to living alone, he hadn't even thought about it. Fucking hell. Now, Sherlock was guaranteed to ask what had happened, probably at the wrong time (though really, there was no _good_ time to discuss that), and John would avoid the conversation, and soon they wouldn't be speaking at all.

He shouldn't have broken his rule — not even to repay a debt of honour. Isolation protected him from the past. Living as he did forced him to concentrate on the present and plan for the future.

But the worst of it was that a part of John's mind was _using_ this, dwelling on Sherlock's expression, the way his eyes had widened in shock before he'd gone blank, lips pressed tightly closed as though to keep from speaking. With a little polishing, he could adapt the experience for his writing — assuming he didn't suffer a complete mental breakdown and shoot himself at his typewriter.

He felt no calmer by the time Molly's house was in sight, and he realised he'd forgotten to radio ahead. The quad was loud enough to get her attention, though, and she appeared around the side of the house before he'd made it across the yard. She hesitated in mid-wave when she spotted John's passenger, and shaded her eyes with her hand to get a better look against the sun's glare.

Molly Hooper was a few years younger than John, a slender, pretty brunette who was surprisingly well-suited for rural living. She was a riparian biologist who'd rented the old Grossman place for a summer to do a study on the ecology of the Fairlake River. She'd liked it so much that she purchased it — she was from a wealthy Boston family, she'd once admitted — and had proven to be the perfect neighbour for John, respecting his privacy and bartering fairly with him.

He pulled the quad up to the old barn that she'd turned into a laboratory and henhouse. The chickens had the run of a yard enclosed with chain link fencing. Her first year of raising them had been a disaster for everyone but the local forest predators, mostly wolves, weasels, and foxes.

John dismounted awkwardly, needing to put some space between himself and Sherlock. "Sorry I didn't call ahead," he said, giving Molly a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"It's no problem. Toby, no!" she added in a shout as Toby, Molly's mongrel dog, came barreling out of the house, barking at Sherlock. Molly went to intercept the dog. Toby was a coward — all bark, no bite, as the saying went. Fortunately, Sherlock didn't seem put off by the threat.

John followed, watching Sherlock look Molly over with what seemed to be his customary intense focus. "Molly Hooper, this is Sherlock Holmes. He's... staying with me for a few months," he said as he stripped off his protective gloves.

Molly gave John a quick, wide-eyed look before she rose, one hand wrapped around Toby's collar. "Hi," she said, extending her free hand to Sherlock. Her eyes stayed wide and her cheeks flushed a dusky pink.

Sherlock's smile was brief and falsely polite. "Miss Hooper," he said, shaking her hand.

"It's 'doctor', actually," John said as he dropped his gloves onto the quad's small dashboard.

"All the rage in the neighborhood, us doctors," Molly said, flashing John a bright smile.

John felt Sherlock's sudden, penetrating stare. He coughed and shrugged, blatantly changing the subject. "Usual place for the feed?"

"Oh, please. Can I get you both anything to drink? Iced tea?"

"_Iced_ tea?" Sherlock asked, sounding horrified.

"Oh. Um, hot tea? That's more British, isn't it?" Molly asked quickly. "I love your accent, by the way. You have a beautiful voice."

With a slight huff of exertion, John picked up the bag of seed and escaped the flirtation, feeling a queasy mix of irritation and relief. He could already see where this was going. Molly would be charming and intelligent, Sherlock would be receptive, and by the end of the month, he'd be staying in Molly's far more comfortable house. Hell, John gave it even odds that Sherlock wouldn't even bother leaving with John in a couple of hours.

He'd chosen his lifestyle intentionally, knowing he was best off alone. When Mycroft had asked John to let his little brother stay with him for a few months, John had been irrationally angry at the invasion of his privacy. But in less than twenty-four hours, Sherlock had proven to be... not too bad. He was quiet and polite and not nearly the terror Mycroft had implied.

The thought of being rid of Sherlock should have made John happy. Instead, though, it felt as though the emptiness that had been growing inside him since the war had just grown a little bit bigger.

* * *

Under normal circumstances, Sherlock thought that if one were to find oneself trapped in the middle of a forest, Dr. Molly Hooper would be an ideal companion — especially since she had a _laboratory_. He hadn't had access to a proper lab since his had been dismantled by Scotland Yard's finest idiots when they'd accused him of cooking up methamphetamines. That charge had been dropped without Mycroft's intervention, once they found a functionally competent chemist to verify that the chemicals in Sherlock's lab had no recreational purpose whatsoever.

The fact that he was subsequently accused of being a domestic terrorist producing chemical weapons _did_ require Mycroft's aid, but at least the investigation had cleared his name of the drugs charge. That one drugs charge, anyway.

Molly went out of her way to make Sherlock comfortable, providing properly hot tea, though without milk, and some Canadian excuse for biscuits that proved to be tasteless crackers that had no business being served with tea. Because he wanted to leave open the option for future laboratory use, assuming he found anything interesting enough to study in this godforsaken wasteland, he chose not to comment.

It took John a full quarter-hour to join them in Molly's kitchen. He unzipped his jacket, poured himself a glass of iced tea, and said, "The coops look good. Holding up all right?"

"Fine." Molly gave him a sunny smile. "The roof seems fine, too. No leaks after last night's snow."

"It doesn't count if it burns off the next day," John said as he sat down. "Want to come up for dinner next week? I was going to try my luck at fishing."

"Mmm, fresh trout. All right." She grinned at Sherlock. "Do you fish?"

Sherlock repressed his instinct to cringe. These people were obsessed with fishing. "Not unless you count helping police divers locate bodies in the Thames."

Molly's eyes went wide. "You — What?"

"I consult with the police from time to time," he said, leaving off the past tense. He honestly wasn't certain if he'd get back his access to interesting cases, once he was back in civilization. If nothing else, he could probably find a way to gain access to the Canadian police. People had to kill each other here. There was certainly nothing else to do.

"I thought you were a chemist." Molly gave a faltering smile. "I mean, look at us. Three doctors and all."

Sherlock glanced at John, who was looking resolutely down into a cold glass of weak tea, his jaw tight. What kind of doctor was he, then? Not an engineer, or he would've done his house plans himself. Not a medical doctor, living out in the middle of nowhere — severe lack of patients and all. A more esoteric doctorate, then? Something that would allow him to work remotely, using the typewriter? Political science, perhaps, though Sherlock was loath to use the two words in the same sentence. 'Politics' was as scientific as phrenology or augury. Too many idiots running the world without half a brain between them.

A touch on his hand made him flinch back in surprise. Molly asked, "Is your tea all right?"

"Fine. Lovely." He turned on his polite smile, pushing his curiosity aside for now.

"Well, if the roof's okay, anything you need me to do while I'm here?" John offered, as he put down his glass, now mostly empty.

"Oh. No, thanks. Dinner next Sunday, then?" Molly asked as she and John rose. Relieved to be escaping, Sherlock followed suit.

"What day's today?"

"Monday," Molly and Sherock both answered.

John's cheeks colored slightly and he nodded. "Right. Sunday, then."

Molly went for the coat hanging by the door. "Let me pack up some eggs for you," she offered, leaving the kitchen while John gathered up their cups and took them to the sink.

Sherlock took the opportunity to look around the kitchen, noting that she, unlike John, was prepared to host guests — four chairs at the table, four garish placemats with sunflowers, a proper coffee pot and a wire tree to hang a matched set of six mugs. Either she was a good housekeeper or she actually had visitors. The latter was more likely; she seemed too flighty and had too many active experiments in progress to spend much time dusting unused dishes.

"How far is the road from here?"

Surprised, John said, "Just a few kilometers, at the edge of her property line."

"So she's not off the electric grid," Sherlock said thoughtfully. "Why are you?"

John shrugged as he finished washing their cups and stacked them in the drying rack. "No point in running a line up to the cabin. I do well enough."

Sherlock nodded, crossing to the front of the house, where he looked out the window. As he'd guessed, there was an electrical pole visible ten yards away, with lines going to the house at roof-level. He wondered if part of John's reluctance was because it would be so easy for someone to track down his house by simply following the power lines. How close was he to the river? Sherlock remembered seeing glimpses of a blue ribbon between the trees when they'd flown in yesterday, but he couldn't anticipate the river's twists and turns. He suspected, though, that John's cabin was positioned in such a way that it wouldn't be easily seen from the water.

Out back, Molly was tying down a substantial cardboard box in the trailer. A sharp thud made Sherlock look over towards the barn, where John was pulling a hatchet out of a log. For a moment, Sherlock had no idea what John was doing. Then he saw the blood and broke into a run, heart jolting in surprise and worry.

"John!"

He twisted, looking back with a confused frown barely visible behind his metallic brown Oakleys. "Something wrong?"

Sherlock stopped when he saw white feathers, some of them bloody. He let out a breath and shook his head, for once at a loss for words. "No."

"I'll be just another couple of minutes. You might not want to watch," John said as he slipped the dead chicken's feet through a loop of rope hanging from the side of the log. Blood drained from the severed neck, dripping into rivulets in the dirt, as John headed back into the barn.

"I hate doing that," Molly admitted, coming up beside Sherlock. "I don't mind fish so much, but the chickens are too..." She unhelpfully trailed off and shrugged. "They taste good, though. Much better than anything I ever got from the supermarket."

For once, Sherlock had no answer for that. The closest he'd ever come to seeing his food alive was lobster.

In quick order, John had three more chickens butchered and hanging. The first two, now drained of blood, went into a plastic bag. He left the others hanging from the bloodstained log.

"I'm probably going back to town on Wednesday. If you need anything, radio me," John said, giving Molly a one-armed hug and a kiss on the cheek, still holding the bag of dead chickens. Then he went to stow the chickens behind the cardboard box, tucking them under one of the straps.

"Thanks." She smiled up at Sherlock and then wrapped a small hand around the back of his neck, trying to pull him down for a kiss on the cheek. When she failed, she turned it into a hug instead, saying, "It was nice to meet you. See you next week."

"Likewise. Yes," he said, feeling a bit distanced from reality. Rehab had been bad, but this — two doctors butchering chickens in the middle of nowhere — felt so surreal that he wondered if he was losing his mind. Still in a daze, he got onto the quad behind John, who zipped up his jacket and pulled on his gloves before starting the engine.

"Take care," John told Molly as he steered the quad carefully in a circle. He twisted to look back, saying to Sherlock, "Keep an eye on the cargo, will you? That chicken's our dinner tonight. No sense having it fly off the trailer and feed the wolves."

* * *

Back home, John lost himself in all the physical work required to maintain the house the way he did. He carefully unpacked the cardboard box of eggs, cushioned in styrofoam packing peanuts and crumbled paper. It had taken some experimentation to determine the best way to transport eggs on a quad or snowmobile, but the peanuts seemed to do the trick. John kept them carefully boxed up to return to Molly. He couldn't always depend on the Fairlake post office to have more.

With winter coming, he needed to spend a couple of hours a day gathering and chopping deadfall for firewood. He'd take the quad out tomorrow. For now, he used some of the stacked wood to build a fire out back, and then filled his deepest pot with water. He hung the pot on a tripod over the fire and went back to sorting out the firewood. Last winter had been the first winter he hadn't come up short and been forced to chop wood in hip-deep snow.

Once the water was boiling, he used it to dip the chickens, which let him strip off the feathers without difficulty. He dumped the feathers a couple hundred yards from the house, along with the feet. Everything else, he'd find a way to use. He'd become a somewhat inventive cook over the past few years.

Sherlock was waiting for him when he returned to the house. "I need to check my email."

John sighed and nodded. He had promised, after all. "Right. Let's get you set up, then," he agreed, leaving the chickens in the kitchen. He washed his hands thoroughly before he went to flip the switch that powered his satellite uplink and router. Remembering that England was on a 220 volt system, he asked, "Did you bring a power converter? The house is set up for twelve volts or one-ten."

"Yes. Mycroft at least gave me enough forewarning for that," Sherlock said flatly. "He hadn't mentioned the" — he gestured around as John moved the typewriter, clearing desk space for his laptop — "conditions. I'll need better clothes."

John looked Sherlock over, firmly telling himself not to let the view catch his interest. Unlike John's clothes, which had ripped through circumstance and chance, the tears in Sherlock's blue jeans were carefully calculated to draw the eye with teasing glimpses of pale skin and taut muscle.

"Right," he said, forcing himself to turn back to the desk. He rooted through the drawers, trying to find where he'd put the login information. "The general store in Fairlake might have something serviceable, but if not, you'll either have to order and have it shipped, or we'll have to fly somewhere more populated."

"I'll order." Sherlock laughed coldly. "Mycroft can afford whatever the shipping cost is. It's his fault for not advising me on what to pack, after all."

Admittedly, John had been wondering about all the suits. He passed Sherlock the login information and wrote down the address of his post box at Fairlake. "You can ship whatever you want to this address," he said, sliding the pad over to Sherlock. "Think you can make it through the end of the week?"

"Only if no one else asks me if I like fishing," Sherlock answered with a quick grin as he started to type. "One more suggestion of fishing, and I can't be held responsible for my actions."

John laughed. "So much for our plans tomorrow," he said, and went back to sorting out dinner.

* * *

The satellite connection was abysmally slow, but it was a lifeline to the outside world all the same, and Sherlock contentedly spent fifteen minutes checking emails. Blocking HTML and attachments helped with the speed and with the feeling of isolation. He really didn't need to download photos of nightclubs he couldn't visit or people he wouldn't see for months.

He placed an order quickly, amused to find that Amazon had its own Canadian website. With the help of a site that translated English clothing sizes into Canadian, he ordered clothes — jeans, warm shirts and jumpers, and wool socks recommended for the cold. He ordered boots, snow gloves, and a new scarf, and then threw in a down parka even more expensive than his favorite overcoat in retribution for Mycroft sending him here.

After a minute, he considered what he knew of John so far. He considered the interested glances, the way John had gone tense and quiet with Molly as though jealous of her attention towards Sherlock, and then thought about the bleak months ahead. Not so bleak, though, if he handled this properly, and he confidently added two more line items to the order, in reasonable quantities, thinking it best not to take chances. He doubted there was a proper market in town, and he absolutely refused to let the challenges of winter shipping to the middle of nowhere get in the way of what might well be the only distraction this cabin had to offer, once they were snowed in..

John had been carefully non-intrusive, perhaps thinking that if he respected Sherlock's privacy, Sherlock would reciprocate. Given that he kept his network password on a sticky pad, Sherlock doubted he had the technical expertise to track website access. Because of that, he opened up a new tab and began a search for 'John Watson, doctor, Canadian military'.

He wasn't surprised to find nothing relevant. The name was common enough that he sorted through three pages of hits before switching to another search engine that wasn't accessible to the public. He used Mycroft's credentials, smiling grimly as the authentication went through. Clever bastard that he was, Mycroft probably _expected_ Sherlock to run this very search, which was why he hadn't changed his password to access this particular server.

The lure of information was high enough that Sherlock conceded the battle. Let Mycroft have his little victory. Hopefully, what he learned would be worth it.

To his surprise, John had a classified file at MI6. Remote authentication wasn't sufficient to allow access to most of the documents in the file, but he was able to open three: a heavily-redacted SAS report on Operation [Redacted], a debriefing that was entirely blank except for the officer's name (Captain JH Watson), and a video. Curious, Sherlock set the video to download — the idea of streaming a video over this horrid internet connection made him cringe — and turned his attention to the papers on the desk while he waited.

At first, he analysed John's skill as a typist and his mastery of the language without paying attention to what he was reading. Then the words filtered into his consciousness, confusing him until he rifled through the stack and realized it was fiction. John was apparently writing a novel. A _children's_ novel, judging by the short sentences and the frequent mention of dragons, elves, and magical swords.

But at the bottom of the pile, the tone of the writing shifted abruptly, going from fantasy to the grim reality of war without warning. The notation at the bottom corner of each page also changed. The fantasy pages were marked 'RB', but these new pages had 'JM' at the bottom. So he was working on two books at once — two extremely different books.

"Rice or potatoes?"

Startled, Sherlock looked back and saw John in the kitchen archway. His eyes went immediately to the pistol still holstered at John's left hip. "Either."

John let out an amused huff of breath. "Not exactly the pain in the ass your brother implied. Does he even know you?"

"No." It came out flat and hostile.

"His loss," John said easily, and went back into the kitchen.

Sherlock stared after him, wondering what the hell _that_ meant. After a day of John seeming tense and standoffish, was he trying to be nice? Flirting? He'd certainly been staring earlier (which wasn't a surprise — Sherlock hadn't exactly dressed for subtlety). And yet, he'd avoided giving Sherlock a clear view of his body —

No, of his _scars_.

John was comfortable with physical contact, shaking hands without hesitation, giving Molly friendly hugs and kisses. He didn't avoid brushing against Sherlock as he walked by. And he'd openly admired Sherlock a few times over the past day, which implied that he most likely wasn't straight.

If Sherlock could get John past his self-consciousness about the scars, the next few months might prove significantly less boring. The scars certainly didn't put Sherlock off. The opposite, in fact. In a world of artificial perfection, plastic surgery, and body modification, the scars made John more interesting, more attractive, not less.

The laptop beeped to let Sherlock know the download was complete. He turned off the volume so John wouldn't hear and then started the video.

After a few seconds of black, the footage turned grainy, showing a poorly lit green and white flag that was unfamiliar. The curved writing was Arabic, and Sherlock leaned forward, watching intently as the clip changed. The flag disappeared, replaced by several armed soldiers, faces masked, surrounding a hooded man bound to a chair. He wore brown camouflage trousers but no shirt. The canvas sack over his head was stained a rusty red along the bottom edge where the fabric touched the wounds. His bared chest was covered in blood and bruises and angry red burns, with filthy gauze taped over his left shoulder and collarbone.

Sherlock went cold, his gut twisting as he tried to deny what he was seeing.

The armed men shouted and gesticulated with their guns for a moment before another soldier stepped into the scene. He pointed back at the bound man and addressed the camera, mouth moving beneath the black and white chequered scarf that hid everything but his eyes. Sherlock didn't need to know the language to understand that he was delivering an ultimatum — comply or the prisoner died.

Then he turned and reached back to remove the hood, revealing the bloody, bruised face of John Watson.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thursday, October 25**

For the next three days, Sherlock tried to push the video out of his mind, tried to delete it, to deny it even existed, but it was too wrapped up in the mystery of John Watson's current life. It was fundamental to him, a shattered bridge between who he was now and whoever he might have been in the past.

Standing outside, wrapped up in his coat and the black jeans he'd worn the previous day, he looked up at an alien night sky and thought about John. Polite, mild-tempered, isolated. Utterly skilled at surviving and even thriving in a solitary environment that would drive most humans mad — Sherlock included, if not for the mystery of unraveling exactly who John was. And, more importantly, how he'd survived.

Late that first night, he had run down his laptop's battery watching the video. It lasted for only one minute twenty-eight seconds, and John's face was only visible for fifty-four of them, but Sherlock had been able to catalogue almost everything they'd done to him. Comparing John's posture and behavior in the video to Sherlock's all-too-precise memory of the scars on his chest, he assumed that their torture had continued after filming had ended.

It seemed a terrible omission now that he didn't speak Arabic. He couldn't identify their country of origin or their political or religious affiliation by accent. Even the flag had turned into a dead-end. It wasn't a national flag but instead identified one of a thousand different groups, one that had never become prominent enough to merit its own entry on Wikipedia. Or perhaps this had been their opening foray, one that Mycroft had shut down before they'd ever really got started.

Sherlock had no doubt that _this_ was how Mycroft had come to know of a Canadian military officer named John Watson. This video was what put John's name on Mycroft's desk. And John had stated that Sherlock was here, now, as a favour to Mycroft.

What favour could be so great that a man like John — a man who treasured his privacy and isolation — would accept a houseguest for not a few days but a few _months?_ Nothing short of a life saved.

SAS Operation [Redacted], then. That must have been the order of things. Mycroft got his hands on the video, sent the SAS to rescue the hostage, and then debriefed him for whatever useful intelligence he had on the men who'd held him and tortured him. That explained the lack of information about the organisation. Acting on John's knowledge, Mycroft had probably sent the SAS back in to scour away any trace of the terrorists.

But why wasn't John broken? Why wasn't he tearing himself apart from the inside, after all he'd endured? Sherlock had no real experience with soldiers or terrorists, but he'd seen more than his share of victims. John shouldn't have survived a year, especially not in a house full of guns, a favored suicide method for men. At the very least, he should have fallen prey to alcohol or tranquilisers, but so far, Sherlock had yet to find more than a single bottle of whisky, mostly untouched, and no drugs stronger than aspirin.

He paced through the yard, looking up at the sky, but the stars held no answer. There were tens of thousands of them, far more than he'd ever imagined, even out in the countryside where he'd grown up. The sky was washed with shades of pale blue and silver where the stars blended their light into radiant bands. The details were meaningless to him — he didn't care about naming constellations or astrophysics or even the missions to explore space — but he could appreciate the beauty, and had found himself drawn to it each night, after dinner and coffee.

He listened as the rhythmic clatter of John's typing, attenuated by the thick window, stopped. A moment later, the door creaked open. "Everything all right?" John asked, right on schedule. Twenty minutes in the cold, and John automatically grew concerned for Sherlock, but he never actually came out from under the shelter of the porch.

Only when he did his before-bed walkaround did he actually leave the doorstep to circle around the house. Sherlock had watched him moving through the darkness with certain, quiet footsteps as he checked the perimeter of the house, the aircraft hangar, and the fuel tanks some distance away. Not once on those checks did he look up at the stars, though. Had he become blase living here? Or was he simply immune to a sight so remarkable, so compelling that even Sherlock was captivated by it?

For the past two nights, Sherlock had let the query draw him back inside. Now, though, he stood his ground and kept looking up at the sky. "It's beautiful here."

Instead of taking the bait, John stayed by the door. "It is," he agreed.

Sherlock glanced back, noting his instinctive desire to stand to attention in the way his shoulders were held stiffly squared, chin upright. His hands still hung casually at his sides, but the left was curled, fingertips just touching the holster he always wore or kept close by, even when he showered.

"Do you know the constellations?" Sherlock asked as though curious. He had no interest, but he knew the logical answer would be for John to come out beside Sherlock so he could more accurately point to various groupings of stars.

"Got a book here somewhere. I'll find it," John said, disappearing back inside. So much for luring him out.

"Bollocks," Sherlock muttered, and turned to follow.

* * *

For as long as John could remember, he'd had an active, rich imagination. He'd grown up on Tolkien's stories, from the well-known Lord of the Rings to the esoteric _Silmarillion_ and almost-unknown _Smith of Wootton Major_. He'd read all of Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet, not just _A Wrinkle in Time,_ and everything by Anne McCaffrey and Ursula Le Guin. His most memorable birthday gift was the compiled Lord of the Rings saga, a single leather-bound volume with gold leaf and pages of fold-out maps that were long since lost, having spent years taped to his bedroom walls. He remembered how his young, skinny arms ached under the weight of it but he refused to put it down until the end of whatever chapter he was reading.

Now, though, the images in his head had gone stagnant and dark, the musical Elvish language degenerating into harsh Arabic tones, clipped and bloody in John's memory. He pressed his hands against his eyes, elbows braced to either side of his typewriter, and tried to see through the sandstorm to the tall blue-green forest with its golden-wood treehouses in the world he'd created. He was off his timeline. He should have had a first draft finished already. Soon, the emails from his editor and publisher would start coming — polite inquiries at first, followed by sharper-worded reminders that while he hadn't signed a contract, he was jeopardising his working relationship with them.

Finally, he ripped the sheet out of the typewriter and tipped it towards the oil lantern. He only had to read a few lines before he huffed in frustration and threw it into the discard basket below the desk. So much for story focus.

Of course, there was the _other_ story, the one his editor and publisher didn't know about, the one he'd started not with the intent of sharing but to exorcise his demons, one word at a time. That one came all too easily to him, as though the more his world of childhood fantasy slipped away, the easier the nightmare took its place. But he wasn't ready. Not yet. One page a month, maybe two — that was the most he could handle. He thought about Sherlock's beautiful light blue eyes and how he'd reacted to the sight of his scars.

Before he even realised he was moving, he was up out of his chair and crossing to the bedroom. Sherlock looked up abruptly but didn't follow. He had a book in his lap, one of the books taken from the bookshelves that lined almost every available wall of the cabin.

He typed the six-digit combination into the gun safe and swung open the door. The tiny halogen light mounted in the top of the safe came on, casting a harsh white glow over oiled metal and matte black composite and softer wood stocks. He got out the .22, an old, lovingly-tended Remington, and slung it over his shoulder. The ammunition was dirt cheap and stocked in quantity in Fairlake, which made it perfect for target shooting.

Rather than going back into the living room, he cut through the bathroom, not ready to answer any questions Sherlock might ask. He put on the patched, threadbare jacket that he kept in the kitchen. He didn't bother with gloves, though he knew his fingers would go stiff, then burn with the cold, then finally go numb if he stayed out long enough.

It was a couple of hours until midnight, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. John walked out back, trying not to look up at the stars, and went to the airstrip. Originally, it had been just over twelve hundred feet. When John had taken possession of the property, he'd expanded it by another two-fifty. He'd paid a small fortune to have it covered with gravel and spent a couple of hours every season hitting it with weed killer.

It made a convenient target range for everything but the sniper rifle. At the far end of the runway, he'd hung scrap metal plates from tree branches. He put the box of ammunition down on the edge of the gravel and crouched, not looking up at the sky as he dropped the magazine into his palm. It only held ten shots, which forced him to take a breath every few seconds while he reloaded.

When he pressed the first bullet into the magazine, his hands shook.

His internal dissonance had to be because Sherlock was there in the house, a living, breathing presence where before there had only been silence. It didn't help that he was fucking gorgeous, with those eyes and that voice and that strange sense of calm intensity. He didn't fill the air with meaningless conversation; he was content to sit in silence, but he always watched, whatever John was doing, wherever he went.

Even now, John kept an ear out for the creak of the back door. He wondered how long it would take between the first shot and when he heard it. Probably only a few seconds.

He pushed the magazine home and rose, snugging the rifle to his right shoulder. He preferred shooting left-handed, but the ejection port was on the right side of the rifle and he didn't feel like eating hot brass.

The scope wasn't very powerful, but that didn't matter. He could barely see his target area, much less an actual target, so he looked in the right direction and brought the rifle up into his line of sight, waiting a few seconds while he tried to distinguish anything. It was pointless — without moonlight, even the infinite stars overhead weren't enough to light up his target — so he eased his finger against the trigger, changing pressure in slight increments until he heard the sharp, sudden report of the firing pin striking. A .22 sounded more like silverware dropped on a tile floor than the _boom_ of a higher-calibre round, and the recoil was too slight for him to detect, even if he'd braced against his bad shoulder.

He squeezed off two more rounds before he heard the back door slam open, wood striking wood more loudly than the echo of the fourth round. That one hit a target, judging by the faint, distant _ting_ he heard from the far end of the runway.

"John?" Sherlock shouted.

"Clear," he called back, raising the muzzle. Then, realising Sherlock might not understand, he added, "I'm at the runway, to your left."

As he listened to Sherlock crunch across the early autumn grass, blades made brittle by the cold, he crouched down, balanced on the balls of his feet, and dropped out the magazine. He felt for the box of ammunition and loaded four rounds to replace the ones he'd fired. His fingers were already stiff, fighting the spring pressure, but his head felt clearer. When he wasn't firing at a living target — and when no one was shooting back at him — he found shooting to be relaxing.

"Are you all right? Did something happen?" Sherlock asked as he stopped beside John. In the starlight, he was a tall silhouette wrapped in a dramatic coat. John could just make out the pale face above the dark wool, but he couldn't pick out the details of his fine bone structure or beautiful eyes.

Just as well. He didn't need to torture himself with what he couldn't have.

"It's fine. I have some targets at the far end," he said, gesturing down the runway.

Sherlock turned. "Can you even _see_ them?" he asked sceptically.

John grinned. "Not even a little." He looked up at Sherlock and impulsively asked, "Want to give it a try?"

Sherlock's laugh was sudden and unguarded and did more to lift John's spirits than the target shooting had. "You're offering _me_ a weapon? You didn't listen to anything my brother said, did you?"

"Like I said on day one, you're an adult." John turned, holding the rifle out while trying to remember what little he knew of UK gun laws. "Ever fired one of these before?"

"Once or twice," Sherlock said with forced casualness.

"Uh huh. Safety's a button behind the trigger." He set the weapon in Sherlock's hands, covering them with his own, directing his fingers to each part of the firearm by feel. "You've got ten shots. The bolt will work automatically. On the last shot, it'll stay open." Gently, he pressed the rifle up and circled around behind Sherlock's right shoulder. The wool coat was soft under his hands. "Snug it in the hollow of your shoulder, but don't worry about recoil. You won't feel it."

"Twenty-two, isn't it?" Sherlock murmured.

"Yes. Oh, ah, did you want me to find safety glasses or ear protection?" he offered. He had some in the gun safe for when he went hunting.

"Safe is another word for boring."

John glanced up at him, surprised, but let that pass. "You're clear to fire, as long as you stay aimed down the runway. I own the property, and anyone on it is trespassing."

"I'll help hide the bodies," Sherlock offered lightly, shifting his stance. That was all the warning John needed to step back, and a moment later, he heard Sherlock fire the first round. As the echo died out, Sherlock brought his head up, then back down to rest in alignment with the scope. "There's really no point in aiming, is there?"

"Want me to dig out the nightvision gear?" John offered

Sherlock laughed, a warm sound that slithered through John before coiling itself contentedly in his chest. "Another time."

* * *

John's sudden departure hadn't caught Sherlock by surprise. His typing had become more and more erratic as the hours passed, until the pauses between words stretched out into nearly a full minute each. The first surprise had been when he'd listened to John open the gun safe, and Sherlock actually wondered if he'd need to stop a suicide until he dismissed the thought as foolish. John wasn't depressed — _distressed,_ yes, and angry, but not depressed.

As soon as John left, Sherlock had checked the page John had discarded from his typewriter. It was more of the same fantasy writing but lacked the vivid imagery of the other pages. Sherlock went back to his book, dismissing John's behavior as a symptom of a bad night, until he'd heard the first gunshot.

Adrenaline slammed into his veins. He ran to John without even thinking, caught up in the sudden fear that he'd assessed the situation wrongly. He had the terrible mental image of John lying dead in the yard, starlight turning his blood to shadowy, liquid black, and he'd never been so glad to be so wrong.

John's impromptu lesson in marksmanship was unnecessary but seemed to amuse him, so Sherlock didn't bother to correct his assumptions that he was a novice. Instead, he enjoyed having John close to him, cold hands guiding his fingers over the weapon. When Sherlock fired, John stayed close, though carefully out of the path of the ejected cartridges, and when all ten rounds were spent, John showed Sherlock the release and caught the magazine as it fell free.

John crouched beside Sherlock, shoulder to knee, and began reloading the magazine. "We can do this in daylight, if you'd actually like to see what you're hitting," he offered.

Supporting the rifle with his left hand, Sherlock found it natural and comfortable to drop his right hand to brush against John's hair. "It's not fishing, so yes."

"I'll also show you how to butcher whatever you hit, so you might want to rethink that," John threatened with a laugh.

Surprised, Sherlock went tense before silently scolding his rusty, unused mind for not having anticipated this facet of John's lifestyle. Of course he hunted. He was living across the continent from the nearest grocery store. Just days earlier, Sherlock had watched him butcher live chickens.

John rose, resting a hand on Sherlock's arm. "Or not," he said uncertainly. "It's fine. It's nothing — I mean, you don't —"

"No," Sherlock interrupted just as uncertainly, wondering how he'd so unexpectedly ended up in this new territory. He'd worked with the police several times, and enough of those cases had been murders. Corpses were nothing new to him, except he was accustomed to _human_ bodies, not animals.

And he'd never killed anyone. Or anything at all, except for cockroaches and the incident with the rat that got into his chemicals cupboard a couple of years earlier.

He felt strangely reluctant to even consider it.

A few seconds passed before John seemed to come to a conclusion. "Well, whatever you're comfortable with." He gave Sherlock's arm a brief squeeze before running his hand down to find Sherlock's. He pressed the loaded magazine to his palm before hesitating. "Did you want to keep shooting? It's freezing out."

Actually, he did — but while he was wearing his warm coat, John was wearing the jacket he threw on when he had to run out to grab more firewood, a battered windbreaker that was doing little to keep off the cold. His fingers were like ice against Sherlock's palm.

The fact that Sherlock noticed was nothing unusual. Most of the time, he could anticipate physiological responses to weather based on what a person was wearing and his estimates of metabolism and body fat. He wanted to stay and play with the rifle, because he'd always enjoyed the challenge of target shooting (even when he couldn't see the target), but he didn't want John to get cold. Colder.

"Let's go inside," he said as an idea struck him.

John's fingers twitched against Sherlock's hand before he reclaimed the magazine. "All right. One minute," he said, easing the rifle from Sherlock's grasp.

He stepped ahead of Sherlock, raised the weapon, and fired all ten rounds with a quick, precise rhythm in the time it took him to exhale, filling the air with the sharp smell of gunsmoke. Then he slung the rifle over his shoulder, bent to pick up the ammunition box at his feet, and said, "I'm going to make coffee, if you want some. Or are you going to bed?"

Sherlock smiled. "I have a better idea."

* * *

John knew most of what Sherlock had brought into the cabin, from the two flash drives in an outside pocket of his laptop bag to the lump of what John thought was raw amber stowed in his violin case. He hadn't gone snooping, precisely, but transporting someone in a tiny aircraft to an equally tiny cabin meant they were practically living in each other's skin, even if John was still sleeping (badly) on the couch.

So when Sherlock took the amber out of his violin case, John was curious but not surprised — not until Sherlock picked up his bow. He twisted a little silver rod at one end and then set a flat surface of the amber to the pale cream strings, stroking the length of the strings down the amber.

"It's rosin," Sherlock said, his eyes fixed to what his hands were doing. John wondered if that was the British pronunciation of 'resin', but was too embarrassed to ask. Bad enough that Sherlock had somehow picked up his curiosity without even looking at him.

The typewriter was calling to him, but his mind was still too dark, urging him not to the fantasy epic but the other book, the one he didn't want to write. Intentionally, John kicked up his legs, crossed his booted feet over the arm of the sofa, and laid back, looking up at the firelight playing on the beams supporting the attic floor. He knew he should go clean the .22, but he justified his laziness by thinking he'd take Sherlock out for some proper target shooting after breakfast, if the weather cooperated.

At first, the sounds were random plucks of metal strings, individual notes twisting and warping as Sherlock tuned the violin. John wasn't impressed, but he'd never been particularly musical, so he had no standards by which to judge. Since anything was better than listening to his own thoughts, he closed his eyes and stopped trying to think about his writing.

The music, when it began, caught John by surprise. He'd never been a fan of classical music, but this was... good. Really good. Familiar, too, he realised before he propped up on his elbows to stare at Sherlock and asked, "Is that Santana?"

Sherlock's smile was almost invisible, a barely-there crinkle around his eyes and a twitch of his lips. "Classical training isn't meant to limit skill. The best musicians are all classically trained, no matter their final genre."

John laughed and laid back down, closing his eyes. "It's beautiful," he said honestly. "And thank you for choosing something I actually recognize. Fairlake isn't exactly a stop on anyone's concert touring schedule."

The answering laugh was almost too soft to be heard over the music.


	5. Chapter 5

**Friday, October 26**

"Snow today," John said over the sound of frying bacon. "Think your order's made it to the post office yet?"

"I should hope so." Sherlock stared at John's back, noting the easy way he stood and moved. In the five nights Sherlock had been at the cabin, he hadn't seen John sleep more than three hours at a time until last night. The ache in Sherlock's fingers should have been irritating, but he felt oddly pleased, as if he'd accomplished something significant, and he couldn't convince himself it the scientific satisfaction of analysing and altering John's behavior.

"We'll fly in today," John decided. "Mark will keep the Fairlake runway clear, if it's not too bad, but if it sticks tonight and continues through tomorrow, we'll have to take the snowmobile and overnight in town."

Sherlock considered the gravel runway and the sheer difficulty of keeping it free of snow. He started to nod before he realised that _takeoff_ was only half the battle. "What about landing?" he asked sharply as John slid bacon onto a plate.

John shrugged, cracking eggs into the pan of bacon grease. "We'll be fine. The snow at Fairlake is always worse, because of the open air. If it gets that bad at Fairlake, I'll just leave the plane there until the weather clears, and we'll take the long way back here."

"Why?" Sherlock asked before he could stop himself. "Why do you live like this?"

A hint of tension appeared in John's shoulders and the way his head came up, though he didn't look away from the stove. "I like the quiet," he said in an absolutely neutral tone. With his back turned, Sherlock couldn't watch for the usual tells, but he sensed John was lying anyway.

He could understand that John enjoyed the physical work required to maintain a primitive lifestyle. Just watching him chop wood had been exhausting for Sherlock, who hadn't done more than sit in the kitchen, looking out the window and drinking coffee. Between caring for the house, preparing for the winter, and his writing, he was constantly busy — something Sherlock could appreciate.

And yet, while he was obviously practiced at some aspects, in others, he was terribly unprepared for such an isolated lifestyle. While wandering the grounds on his second day there, Sherlock had found a weed-choked, dead garden. Somewhat embarrassed, John explained that he'd tried to grow his own vegetables for three years before deciding he had no talent at gardening. Instead, he stocked canned vegetables and bartered with Molly, whose garden was small but significantly more successful.

But the reality was that John was a social creature, as John proved not two hours later, in the so-called 'village' of Fairlake. The habitation was little more than a cluster of fifteen buildings, the largest of which was the two-storey feed and goods store. The post office was the only commercial building that didn't have an attached residence or its own fenced pen of goats, pigs, sheep, or cows.

Suddenly starved for mental input, Sherlock threw himself into exploring and actually went so far as to chat up every single person he met. He even kept his observations to himself, though he privately identified four alcoholics, one polygamous marriage, and the statistical improbability of three separate men in this tiny town, all unknown to one another, who dressed in women's clothing in the privacy of their own homes.

He also learned that he could, with minimal effort, rob the entire town blind. Only the post office had locks that would take him more than thirty seconds to pick. The townsfolk were universally friendly (perhaps 'desperate' was a better word), and Sherlock was invited into almost every house for tea, water, or just a quick greeting. He noted typical hiding places for valuables and analysed the shifts in importance with which people regarded their belongings. Guns, for example, were almost universally displayed, either in safes or glass-fronted cabinets or hanging on the wall, all of them loaded and close at hand. When Sherlock casually commented on what looked like an antique from the first World War, he was told, "Still good for killing bears. That's all that matters."

And finally, he learned that everyone — _everyone_ — liked John, and he seemed genuinely friendly in return. Sherlock had dealt with recluses before. He had watched them attempt to function when forced into a social situation, with varying degrees of success, and John bore none of the same traits. In fact, the only behavior that was at all unusual was an obvious sense of awareness. As they walked through town, Sherlock watched John mark the location of every person or vehicle or animal on the street, saw the way he noted windows and doors, observed how he glanced to the side as they passed a corner.

For the first time, Sherlock regretted leaving rehab. There had been soldiers there. Not many, but enough that he could have questioned them, dug into their minds, learned what it was like to see war and be unable to subsequently return to society. John's experience in the Middle East had to be the reason for the contrast between his life of isolation and his genuine friendliness. He knew he would figure it out eventually — in the end, he always did — but knowing there was more than he could deduce frustrated him to no end.

* * *

Between Sherlock and the clothes he'd purchased, John had only a few kilos of leeway for supplies. Before they'd even left the house, he'd decided there was no point in being practical about restocking. He wouldn't have the available weight allowance for the Kitfox to carry even one bulk sack of rice. So while Sherlock tried on his new clothes in the bathroom at the general store, John browsed the aisles and tried to remember the last time he'd indulged in any sort of luxury purchase. His memory came up empty. For years, he'd focussed on survival and challenging himself to live with less, not more.

He thought about Sherlock, who came from London, and about having Molly over for dinner on Sunday night, and considered a bottle of wine, but he didn't know good wine from bad. Besides, Fairlake's stock of alcohol tended towards the cheap and plentiful, a temptation he'd managed to ignore on all levels, though he did keep a single bottle of whisky at the cabin. Ingestible alcohol was too useful not to have on hand in emergencies.

Instead, he wandered over to the baking aisle, thinking of his disastrous attempts at making desserts or casseroles. He'd finally concluded that it was impossible to actually bake anything using the wood stove with its variable temperatures and random cool spots. But he could improvise, he thought, eyeing the supply of crackers. Graham crackers and the last two bags of marshmallows were a good start, and there was more than enough chocolate stocked by the cash register. He picked up a bag of milk as well, recalling Sherlock's opinion about powdered creamer. After he paid, everything went into the small backpack he'd brought with him, and he went outside to check the weather.

Sherlock joined him a few minutes later. He still wore his long, sweeping overcoat, though he'd changed his slacks for blue jeans and his shoes for heavy-treaded hiking boots. Over one arm, he carried a down parka with a fur-lined hood, and he had a blue and black backpack slung over the other shoulder.

"Going to tell your brother you've gone native?" John asked as he led Sherlock in the direction of the airfield.

Sherlock gave him an odd look before he took the phone out of his coat pocket. He'd been keeping it turned off to conserve battery power. "Will I even get signal here?"

"No." John gestured for him to put the phone away. "He wanted me to call him next time I was in town. Figured you might want to talk to him."

Sherlock's expression shuttered. "He wants you to report on me."

"Then he'll be disappointed." When Sherlock looked at him in surprise, John reminded him, "Adult, remember? I'm not going to spy on you for him."

"It's what he expects. He arranged —" Sherlock cut off and shook his head abruptly. "It's not important. He won't be happy with you."

"I'm heartbroken," John said flatly, unable to keep the edge of hostility out of his voice. Since Holmes had decided to call in his debt, John had felt uncomfortable at being trapped between two warring brothers.

He thought he'd known what to expect when he'd learned he was getting himself a cocaine addict to watch through the first half of the snowy season, if not longer. What he got, though, was nothing like what he'd been told. No violence, no paranoia, no mood swings or hostility or anything undesirable at all, unless one counted Sherlock's inherent laziness. He'd never even courteously offered to wash a dish, though he hadn't contributed to any household mess. He hung his towels and kept the bedroom in order and was surprisingly good company, or at least not as much of a pain in the ass as he might have been.

"If he expects you to call him —"

"I'll call him," John interrupted, "and I'll tell him you arrived safely and are in fine health for someone who doesn't sleep enough and probably could stand to gain ten pounds or so. Then you can tell him whatever you'd like, including 'fuck off', if that's what you want."

Sherlock stared at him before his lips slowly curled up in a smile. "You mean that."

"Of course I do. Just don't take too long, or we'll be landing in the snow _and_ dark."

* * *

Back at the cabin, Sherlock followed John to the pantry, saying, "He's an interfering bastard, but he's proven useful now and then." John set down the backpack he'd filled while in town and bent to open it. Sherlock watched; he hadn't been able to determine what John had bought, and the curiosity had been nagging at him.

"He's your brother. Maybe he just cares," John suggested as he took two plastic bags of...

"Marshmallows?" Sherlock asked, baffled. They'd been useful at uni when combined with a microwave oven or certain chemicals, but John didn't even own a microwave.

John's brows went up. He took out a rattling box of digestives labelled 'graham crackers' and held it up as if it were significant. "You _have_ had s'mores, haven't you?"

"Is that even a word?"

"God, have you been living under a rock?" John asked, though not harshly. His laugh was warm and friendly and inclusive, as though he were happy to introduce Sherlock to something new. "We'll save some for Sunday, but you have to try them tonight. Would you get the fire started in the living room?"

Driven by curiosity, Sherlock nodded and picked up one of the oil lamps in the kitchen and carried it to the living room. He raised his voice to continue the conversation. He doubted John cared about etiquette and yelling in the house — not that the house was large enough to actually warrant yelling.

"Mycroft doesn't 'care' about anyone except himself and his powerbase. He's only interfered in my life this much because someone might get the idea that I'm a good target to use as leverage against him. He probably would have had me killed, except I'm useful."

"Sherlock!" John stepped into the archway a moment later, staring at him in shock. "How could you say that about your own brother?"

"It's nothing but the truth." Sherlock used the lamp to light the end of a thin twig, and then transferred the flame to the kindling laid in the hearth. "I occasionally do some minor work for Mycroft — usually when his pet spies and analysts prove incompetent, or when he wants to hide something even from his own black ops teams." He let out an irritated huff, wondering how Mycroft could stand working with people day in and day out. Even his handpicked teams were often frustratingly dense. Sherlock would have probably packed the lot of them into a boat and then arranged for it to sink.

Once the kindling was going well, he started laying split logs onto the grate, careful not to smother the flames. Realising John had gone quiet, he glanced over, expecting that John had gone back into the kitchen to start dinner or put up coffee as was his habit.

But he was still standing in the archway, eyes fixed on Sherlock, left hand resting on his handgun in a manner that was familiar but no longer casual at all. He seemed almost relaxed, weight balanced evenly, shoulders loose, but a sense of danger crackled around him.

Instinctively, Sherlock rose, taking a carefully measured step back, suddenly aware that he was unarmed and terribly out of practice. More than a year ago, he'd realised money spent on judo could be better spent on forgetting reality. Even at the height of his training, though, he doubted he would have been able to manage _this_ situation, because he had no idea what he was facing. He only knew that John — friendly, odd, helpful John — was suddenly very, very dangerous.

"What now?" John asked quietly.

A hundred answers flitted through Sherlock's mind: things he would say to criminals, broken down further into burglars, murderers, kidnappers, or unknown; things he would say to police, authorities, and Mycroft's thugs; things he would say to strangers or acquaintances or his dealers, to junkies in a bad trip or a paranoid crash. But without the ability to properly categorise John, he had no idea what to say, except, "Marshmallows and digestives?"

Whatever John had been expecting, it apparently wasn't that. "Marshmallows and _what?_"

"Digestives. The crackers," Sherlock answered, equally wrong-footed.

John stared at him, some of the threat fading, leaving Sherlock to breathe more easily. "You... you mean dessert. You want —" He shook his head, closing his eyes for just a second. "I mean, what are you actually planning to do?"

"I have no idea," Sherlock admitted before his brain caught up with the situation as the adrenaline in his system finally did its job, burning through another layer of the recovery-fog left over from rehab. "Black ops. You think I _work_ for him. God, no. I'd sooner shoot myself."

John's eyes narrowed, but the tension eased another tiny bit. He didn't move his hand from the butt of his gun, but his fingers relaxed. "You _do_ work for him. You said so: 'minor work'."

"That's nothing to do with you," Sherlock said, trying to remember anything he'd done for Mycroft that qualified as even vaguely interesting. "Finding security leaks, retrieving stolen files, that sort of thing. And only if I have no other choice, or if I can extort immense sums of money from him. I love ruining his budget," he added with a fierce grin. "I used his entire discretionary budget for two years in a single month to retrieve the formula for a bioengineered strain of anthrax early last year, before it could be put on the market in Hong Kong."

"What do you want from me, then?"

_That,_ he could answer. He gave John his most charming smile and let his voice drop low, asking, "Would you rather I make a list?"

John's hand fell away from his gun. "Are you..." He trailed off into silence and shook his head, finally lifting his hand to rake through his hair. "Sorry. Never mind," he said distantly as he went back into the kitchen. "I'll just... start dinner."

Sherlock let out a breath and rested his arm on the stone mantle, wondering if he'd misread John's inclinations. No relationship with Molly, no real attempt at hiding the way he looked at Sherlock... probably not gay, but definitely not straight, and just as definitely interested in Sherlock. Wasn't he? Of course he was.

Sherlock couldn't remember the last time he'd tried to seduce someone outside a club or the streets or a party. He thought back all the way to the start of uni and wondered if he _ever_ had. He certainly hadn't bothered at boarding school — even a whiff of homosexuality there would have made his life even more hellish than it already had been, and he saw no reason to give his enemies any more ammunition to use against him, especially not if it would disarm him of his best blackmail material.

He threw a quick glance at the fireplace to ensure it wouldn't go cold, and then went for the bedroom to get rid of his boots, buying himself time to think of his next move.

* * *

Mechanically, John dumped the chicken quarters into a deep pan, added salt and pepper, and then went outside. Cold air enveloped him, pressing into his lungs with almost suffocating force. He rubbed his hands over his long sleeves and looked out into the snow that gave the illusion of light without actually showing anything.

That had been close. Too close. Idiotic, stupid, foolish paranoia. Of course Sherlock hadn't been sent to kill him. He'd had ample opportunity as recently as last night, when John had actually fallen asleep with Sherlock right there in the room with him. While it was true that John had awakened the moment Sherlock had stopped playing the violin, he hadn't snapped to full alertness. Rather, it had been the type of drowsy rise from sleep that he never experienced these days, as though surfacing just enough to verify that there was no threat. He'd even gone back to sleep before Sherlock had finished putting the violin back in its case.

He knew he should go back inside and apologise, but he had no idea how to phrase it so he didn't sound like a complete fool. There was no way to say 'sorry for nearly shooting you, but I thought you'd been sent to kill me' and still sound sane.

But this proved one thing: Having Sherlock here was a terrible idea. The best thing would be to fly Sherlock back to Fairlake tomorrow and pay Mark to get him out to Little Prairie or some other airport where he could get a connecting flight to anywhere else, as far from Fairlake and John as possible. Hell, if he thought Sherlock could drive the quad and not get lost, he'd send him out to Molly's tonight. Or _he_ could go to Molly's, and leave Sherlock safely on his own at the cabin. That might be a better alternative. He'd stayed at Molly's a couple of times, usually because of bad weather. She wouldn't be in any danger from him. Molly couldn't threaten a fly.

He went out into the snow, testing the depth. Not even a half inch, and it wasn't coming down too strongly — just enough to make obscure visibility, not enough to let him use the snowmobile.

Perhaps he could stay, just for tonight. Then he'd take Sherlock to Molly's tomorrow. They'd been together for five days, after all, and this was the first incident of any kind. Hell, it was almost understandable, given Sherlock's phrasing and what John knew about his elder brother's role in the military. He'd just have to watch himself more carefully, he decided.

Somewhat reluctantly, he drew his gun and started back inside, thumbing the release to drop the magazine out. Cupping his hand over the ejection port, he racked the slide back and caught the round he kept chambered. He pocketed the round and the magazine and slid the gun back into the holster. He wouldn't disarm completely, but he could at least remove the ability to immediately fire the weapon.

He pushed open the kitchen door, trying to get the magazine comfortable in his pocket, and nearly walked into Sherlock, who was reaching for the door from inside. "What —"

"Where did —" Sherlock looked down, right at John's pocket, then glanced at the gun. "What are you doing?"

The man was too damned observant. "Nothing." He slid past Sherlock and went to check on the chicken. He hadn't remembered to put any oil in the pan, which meant the quarters stuck unpleasantly as he pried them up with tongs. Seasoned cast iron was no substitute for teflon, but it was far more durable, especially when cooking at random temperatures. He splashed some oil into the pan and used the edge of the tongs to scrape at the stuck bits, trying to distract himself. If he looked busy, maybe Sherlock wouldn't ask what had happened.

"You said yourself you didn't care why my brother sent me here," Sherlock said after John flipped and scraped the last quarter. "Based on the limited information you have, it's perfectly reasonable that you assumed I'm here here to... as a threat."

John dropped the tongs on the counter with a loud clatter. "Can we not do this, please?" he asked sharply, wrapping his hand with a towel. He picked up the hot kettle, gave it a shake to estimate the volume of water, and put it back on the stovetop.

When Sherlock answered, his voice was much closer. "I'm happy to never mention him again, if you can think of something more engaging to discuss," he offered, his voice full of deep, significant tones that in anyone else, in any other circumstance, John would have called innuendo, even invitation. Now, he just flinched and looked back, wondering how the hell Sherlock had crept so close without him noticing.

"Fine," John said tightly. He tried to force a smile and turned quickly away, knowing he was destined to fail. "Fine by me. Care to set up the coffee?" he suggested.

"Later." Sherlock was closer now, right at John's back, though he wasn't touching him. "I shouldn't have mentioned him at all. How can I make it up to you?" he asked, leaning down to purr the words right in John's ear.

For a few endless seconds, John forgot all about resisting, caught up in the unexpected pleasure of a game he hadn't played for years. Sherlock was gorgeous and talented and intelligent, and against all odds, apparently _interested_.

But when a hand curved around John's right hip, fingers brushing the magazine of bullets in his pocket, John twisted away violently enough that he bumped into the stove, nearly sending the pan flying — not because he didn't want that touch, but because he did.

The last time anyone had even tried to hit on him, it had been Molly, and he'd managed to convince her that he wasn't interested in anyone at all. Guiltily, he realised he hadn't even tried that with Sherlock. Hell, in some ways, he'd done the opposite, encouraging Sherlock's closeness under the guise of offered friendship.

Either way, that should have been Sherlock's cue to back off, but he didn't. He stepped closer, looking down at John with almost predatory interest. "You don't think I'll hurt you," he said speculatively, and though the phrasing was ominous, it didn't come out as a threat. "You're not straight," he continued, studying John's face as he spoke, softly, curiously. "You're not in a relationship."

"Not looking for one," John said, forcing himself to breathe steadily. The stove was hot at his back, so he sidestepped, breathing easier when he was out in the open space near the back door.

"Neither am I," Sherlock pointed out reasonably.

Before Sherlock could make an offer that would probably be too tempting for him to resist, John interrupted, "Good. Settled, then. I'll start the coffee. Dinner won't be ready for another twenty or thirty minutes, if you want to go check your email."

Uncertainty flickered across Sherlock's expression. He didn't take the single step that would bring him close again. His gaze dropped, skimming in quick, darting glances over John's body, lingering for a moment on the holstered, unloaded gun. "You should load that," he said, his voice absolutely neutral, still a beautiful, silky baritone. Without the low, rough purr, it sounded cold and empty, and John couldn't hide his flinch.

"It's not —"

"Everyone in town had a loaded gun, and bears are more likely to show up here, in the middle of nowhere," Sherlock said, abruptly turning away. He headed for the living room desk, where he now had a clear space for his laptop. "Besides, you're more comfortable if you're armed."

John stared into the living room, watching the firelight play over half of Sherlock's body as he leaned over to flip the switch, powering up the router and satellite dish. Then he sat down and pushed open his laptop to wait for it to come out of hibernation.

Exhaling sharply, John turned and went to get a glass of water from the sink. His hands were shaking and his jeans were uncomfortably tight, reminding him why he didn't do this. He drank the water, considered the whisky in the cupboard, and decided that there was no sense tempting fate. Maybe if they both just let this drop, they could go back to the comfortable, somewhat distant, _safe_ friendship they'd developed. John wouldn't take any risks with Sherlock, but he also didn't want to lose him entirely.

He drained the glass of water, and when his hands were steady, he set the gun, the magazine, and the bullet on the counter. After a moment's consideration, he pushed the magazine into place, and then racked the slide to chamber a round. Then he dropped the magazine, fed the spare bullet into it, and pushed the magazine back. He holstered the gun, making certain to snap the retainer strap into place.

Sherlock was right. He did feel more comfortable.


	6. Chapter 6

**Saturday, October 27**

As Sherlock followed John into the trees, he couldn't help but glance at the shotgun slung over John's shoulder. He was no expert with shotguns — handguns were far more common in London — but it didn't strike Sherlock as an appropriate weapon for casual target shooting. Of course, he also didn't know why they were going out into the woods, rather than using the makeshift firing range at the airstrip. Perhaps John's heavier weaponry was in case of bear attack.

The thought made Sherlock's skin crawl. He'd rather face down a hundred of London's worst criminals than meet a single bear in the wild.

"Where are we going?" he asked softly. The cloudy forest seemed to encourage quiet conversation.

"Thought I'd show you some of the property." He flashed Sherlock a quick smile that seemed genuine, though even Sherlock had difficulty reading the nuances through John's dark sunglasses. "I promise, no fishing," he added with a laugh.

Last night had been tense and awkward, even for Sherlock. John had cooked dinner, made coffee, and settled in at his typewriter without commenting either on Sherlock's interest or on his own misunderstanding. Finally, Sherlock had gone to bed — frustratingly alone — and had stared up into the darkness, listening as John's typing finally achieved a quick, steady rhythm that lulled Sherlock into a doze.

At some point, John must have slept, though he was awake and cooking breakfast when the dreary grey light of dawn came through the windows and woke Sherlock. Apparently accustomed to little sleep and exercise, John walked with easy, casual confidence, showing none of the wariness he'd demonstrated in Fairlake. To him, the unknown predators in the forest (which Sherlock imagined lurking behind every tree and in every shadow) were no threat. Rather, John perceived _people_ as a threat. Not Molly (though she was just as unthreatening as her absurd dog) and, until last night, not Sherlock. And apparently, Sherlock had gone back to being a non-threat this morning; otherwise, John wouldn't have armed him.

He shrugged his shoulders to adjust the fall of the backpack he wore over his new parka. John had insisted they both carry emergency supplies, even though they hadn't planned on walking far. He'd packed for Sherlock, showing him where everything was stowed for quick retrieval — mylar emergency blanket, small first aid kit, torch (with batteries tested), folding knife, cigarette lighter (with redundant waterproof matches), granola bars, and water. He'd even apologised for not having two-way radios on hand, and warned Sherlock not to stray too far from his side.

Not that Sherlock planned on letting John get away from him that easily. After last night, he was _more_ interested in John, not less, but John seemed to have gone the opposite way. He was friendly, courteous, and caring, but he'd reverted to the polite, quiet distance of their first day together. Embarrassed over his disproportionate reaction, most likely.

As they walked, Sherlock considered and dismissed various strategies to manipulate John into getting past this awkward distance he was attempting to maintain. An injury was the most obvious way to get John close and evoke a deeper sense of concern. A firearms accident seemed ideal at first, but Sherlock dismissed the thought at once, realising that would just bring back John's own traumatic memories. Best to avoid any injury at all.

Flattery usually worked well. John was obviously more knowledgeable about this unpopulated wilderness. A few carefully-chosen questions would reinforce his ego and allow Sherlock to safely express his admiration. But there was the very real possibility that John might actually expect Sherlock to pay attention, even to _remember_ whatever they discussed, and Sherlock had no desire to memorise information that would be useless once he was back in civilisation.

He stopped, his eyes going to John's back as he realised he'd be going back _alone_.

He didn't want that. Oh, he desperately wanted to get back to London. He'd already been away for far too long. He _craved_ the city more deeply than he'd ever desired any chemical release from reality, as if London's streets were engraved through his veins and nerves, his bones constructed from her buildings.

He closed his eyes, immersing himself in the sense-memory of the smell and sound and sight of a thousand windows looking out into the London night, every one of them hiding the possibility of mystery and intrigue, danger and pleasure, and he realised at that moment that he didn't just want to go back. He wanted John to go back with him. He wanted to see how John, after years of self-imposed isolation, would react to Sherlock's city.

Forget the tourist destinations and arts and culture. Sherlock would take John to the hidden city underneath the public veneer. He'd show John the back alleys and forgotten streets and unknown restaurants. He'd take John into his world of nightclubs and private parties — and _that_ was an image that nearly overloaded Sherlock's imagination, John in tight jeans and a shirt straining across his broad chest and shoulders, showing off his forearms. At first glance, John seemed so harmless, so forgettable, as though his allure crept up in unseen, unnoticed increments until the full impact of John's physique and willpower and competence overwhelmed the observer, just as it had with Sherlock, who had been so quick to initially dismiss him.

John's sigh scattered the lovely, distracting thoughts. Sherlock opened his eyes, suddenly glad that he'd bought a parka that hung well past his hips, and saw John standing a careful eight feet away. His gloved hands were shoved into his pockets as though he were making a point of not even touching the rifle hanging over his shoulder or the handgun under his jacket.

"Look, I know this must be... uncomfortable," John said apologetically. He was turned in Sherlock's direction, but Sherlock had the impression that his gaze was averted, hidden behind the sunglasses. "Why don't we just go back? I can take you to Molly's house on the quad. It's safe enough."

So much for a manufactured excuse to bridge the distance between them. He physically crossed that distance, watching the way John tensed, not to attack or defend but to back away. He didn't move, though, which was encouraging, and Sherlock didn't stop until he was only a foot away, close enough that their winter-fogged breath mingled in a pale cloud between them.

"Much as I look forward to returning to London, I have no intention of doing so now, nor do I have any desire to spend any significant time with your neighbour," he said, letting his voice pitch low and smooth.

John shifted his weight, prepared to step back, and Sherlock caught his sleeve, cursing the bulky jackets and gloves that separated them both. At the touch, John went still, saying, "Sherlock —"

"John," he interrupted quietly. He wanted to pull away the sunglasses but sensed that John needed that little artificial distance. If Sherlock pushed too hard, John would shut down completely, and Sherlock might never get another chance at him. Even this might be too much, but Sherlock had to try.

Lightly holding John's sleeve, Sherlock raised his free hand and used his teeth to tug off the glove. John's head turned sharply to watch the path of the glove as Sherlock tossed it aside. Cold air bit at Sherlock's fingers, but he didn't care. He set his fingertips to John's face, for an instant feeling the golden brown stubble and icy skin of his jaw before John flinched away.

"John," Sherlock repeated quietly, soothingly, and touched again. This time, John didn't pull back. He parted his lips and took a quick breath. The motion drew Sherlock's eyes down, and he saw no reason at all not to chase that breath.

Tight with tension, John's lips tasted of cold and snow. Subtle, burning points of contact connected them skin to skin — Sherlock's fingertips on John's face, his thumb on the thinner flesh over John's cheekbone, their lips touching lightly, barely more than the air they shared for one breath, two, before John's exhale shuddered against Sherlock's mouth.

Encouraged, Sherlock licked at John's cold, chapped lips, gently pressing with his fingertips. Stubble prickled against his skin, shifting as John's mouth opened just enough for Sherlock's tongue to flick across his teeth. John's inhale was sharper now, and a hand pressed against Sherlock's side not to pull him close or push him away, but simply to touch. His mouth opened further, and the brush of John's tongue — just the tip — crackled through Sherlock like lightning.

Then John did move, shifting a half-step closer and standing taller, swiping his tongue across Sherlock's before he pushed into Sherlock's mouth, bringing with it heat and nerve-snapping tension and fierce desire. Their noses bumped coldly, nostrils flared as they both tried to breathe without losing their connection. Sherlock's hand on John's sleeve tightened into a fist as John's hand slid to Sherlock's back, and it was _maddening_ that Sherlock couldn't feel John's body through the ridiculous layers of down-stuffed Gore-Tex and wool and far, far too much clothing.

It was John who broke the kiss. His hand fell from Sherlock's body and he stepped back with a deep breath as though to steady himself. He licked his lips, an action Sherlock mirrored, wanting to capture the lingering taste of John's mouth before the cold stole it away. He felt John's absence like a bone-deep ache that made him shiver from the effort to recapture John's closeness. The tension was returning to John's posture — not like last night, but enough to warn Sherlock to tread carefully or risk chasing John away.

For a moment, they stood in the silent, snowy forest, breathing out of rhythm but equally deeply. Sherlock wondered if the cold felt like fire in John's lungs the way it did in his own. He wondered if John's body tingled painfully at the absence of touch and if he could still feel the impression of Sherlock's lips against his own.

John broke the silence as well, boot crunching through the light snow and into the fallen leaves beneath. He bent to retrieve Sherlock's castoff glove, his free hand automatically dropping to steady the rifle at his side.

"Idiot," he said as he offered the glove to Sherlock, a strange affection in his voice. Sherlock couldn't see his eyes, but he imagined the way they were tight with humor. "Do you want frostbite? Put that back on."

Sherlock took the glove with a laugh and put it on as he fell in beside John, both of them walking again. Neither of them mentioned the kiss, and there was no attempt to hold hands or touch, but the distance between them had disappeared, which was good enough for now.

* * *

Kissing Sherlock Holmes — kissing _anyone,_ in fact — was a spectacularly bad idea. Without even trying, John could think of fifteen or twenty reasons _not_ to have a repeat.

It was just a kiss. No big deal. At least, at one point in John's life, it wouldn't have been. Back in school, he'd had a hell of a reputation, both with women and men. Molly had kissed him, back when they'd first started to build a friendship. He'd been tempted; she was sweet and pretty and John was admittedly sick of being alone, but he'd turned her down, knowing it was the best choice for them both. They were still friends. So there was no reason to think he couldn't do the same with Sherlock.

But he wanted it. Desperately. After all these years, he'd thought he'd trained himself out of craving intimacy and closeness, whether it was the rush of sex or the sweet laziness of cuddling with a loved one. He'd convinced himself not to think about Molly in that way, and he'd been so successful that he'd grown cocky. That was the only explanation. False confidence had made him vulnerable, and now Sherlock had slipped past his guard and under his skin and there was no way in hell that he'd be able to say no.

As it turned out, Sherlock already knew how to shoot (though not as well as he kissed, a treacherous corner of John's mind supplied), so John was able to give him a couple of tips to improve his aim and then lean back against a tree, watching him and trying not to overthink the situation.

Once Sherlock seemed to get bored with target shooting, John challenged him to lead the way back, thinking it best if Sherlock started learning his way around the forest in case he got lost. To John's surprise, Sherlock didn't try to backtrack. Instead, he looked thoughtfully into the distance for a moment before he started walking. John followed, trying not to give any hints, lazily keeping an eye on their surroundings. Bears weren't usually a problem now, but an encounter with wolves or coyotes could be disquieting. He was more interested in game animals, though, so he kept his attention on the low brush near small clearings.

When they came in sight of the cabin, John asked, "All right, how'd you do it?"

Sherlock glanced back at him before looking up at the sky. "Position of the sun, slight contour of the ground, sound of the river. I never get lost, especially not in an open area without many obstacles to one's path — unlike in London, with twisting streets and an interfering river."

John laughed, and Sherlock shot him a closed, defensive glare. "I'm impressed," he said quickly, realising Sherlock thought the laugh was mocking. "You yourself said you're not the outdoorsy type."

"Neither are you."

The truth of that hit a little too close to home. It was John's turn to bristle, though he tried to hide it with another laugh. "You _have_ noticed where I live, right? I've been here for... six years now? Almost seven," he said, a bit of bleak amazement creeping into his thoughts. On December 31, it would be seven years.

Seven years, and he hadn't expected to even live out one. Hell, sometimes he thought he'd chosen to move out to the wilds to save someone else the trouble of cleaning up his body after he finally got sick of the nightmares and put a bullet in his brain. Seven years of surviving — not really living — weighed heavily against a lifetime built in small, happy pieces, from childhood to medical school to the terrible exhilaration of war. He struggled against the weight pressing down on his chest, the hot tension knotting up his throat, the pressure behind his eyes, until his mind lost the battle against his body, and he was able to take a breath.

When he exhaled unsteadily, he realised Sherlock had stopped walking and turned back to face him. "Sorry, planning the dinner menu for tomorrow," John lied clumsily. He'd never been a particularly good liar — not when honesty had served him well through most of his years — and Sherlock didn't miss _anything_.

Now, Sherlock's blue-grey eyes sharpened, fixed intently on John's face as though he knew every thought slithering around in John's fucked-up mind. Panic seized John's breath all over again, but this time, he channeled it into motion. He might have said something — _Let's get inside,_ perhaps, or something about the cold — but he had no idea what. He pushed past Sherlock and headed with brisk steps for the cabin's front door, forcing himself to think only as far ahead as the next hour: build up the fires, set up dinner, clean the guns. Everything else would have to wait.

* * *

Dinner was sausages made by the Coles, a family of butchers and taxidermists in Fairlake. Last winter, John had shot a bear not too far out of town and had managed to get it to his quad and into town before the meat could go rancid. The Coles had butchered it and traded half the meat and the pelt for sausages, burgers, steaks, and roasts enough to fill John's deep freezer. He served the sausages with beans that had been soaking since yesterday and pan-fried cornbread made with the morning's bacon drippings.

After John washed the dishes, he dried out the skillet, listening as Sherlock finally pushed his chair away from the table. Usually, as soon as his plate was clear, he'd be in the living room to check his email. John had grown accustomed to bringing Sherlock his coffee at the desk before he went back to the kitchen to clean up after dinner. This time, though, Sherlock had stayed at the table for coffee, and what had been a comfortable silence turned awkward as John's imagination took flight, filling the silence with expectation and prying curiosity.

He left the dry skillet on the counter and went to the pantry, watching Sherlock out of the corner of his eye. Instead of going into the living room, Sherlock crossed to the pantry and asked, "Dessert?"

John's breath caught. He'd never heard 'dessert' laden with such innuendo — or maybe it was just his imagination. He wasn't just rusty at flirtation; he couldn't even reliably tell when it was actually happening. "Coffee," he managed to say.

"I don't want more coffee, John." Sherlock pulled the door open so he could get closer to John, who was trying to remember which of the plastic tubs held the green coffee beans. After their walk, Sherlock had showered and changed clothes. He smelled of soap, and the cool humidity had dried his hair in messy curls hanging down towards his right eye. All through dinner, John's fingers had twitched from the desire to brush those curls away.

"We'll be out in three days if I don't roast more. Maybe two, the way you go through coffee," John answered, resolutely not looking. He finally pried off one of the lids and glared at the rice inside. He replaced the lid with a loud _snap_.

"It can wait."

Realising they were about to have _the talk,_ John took a breath to steady himself, rose from his crouch, and turned to find Sherlock standing much closer than he'd expected, only inches away. "Look, I —"

"Must we?" Sherlock asked sharply as his hands came up, long fingers skimming over John's face, sliding back along his jaw to brush lightly, chillingly over his hair. "I prefer not to waste time in unnecessary conversation — as do you."

It was true, and another time, John might have said so. He wanted to say _something,_ but he knew he'd come off sounding like a babbling idiot if he started to talk.

Sherlock took his silence for consent, which, in a way, it must have been, because when he leaned down to steal a kiss, John couldn't find it in himself to protest. He leaned into it, hands sliding up to grasp Sherlock's waist, holding him lightly but closely. The kiss was sweet, tasting of coffee, and full of confident aggression as if to encourage John to let go of his inhibitions.

Seven years of self-denial proved too much of a strain. The last of John's reservations dissipated like fog, and he pulled Sherlock close to take control of the kiss, reveling in the feel of a body pressed to his, warm and hard and very real. Sherlock's fingers twisted in John's hair as he parted his lips further, allowing John to explore his mouth and nip at his lips.

Somewhere on the other side of the kiss, John knew things would be worse. First times were always awkward, especially since there wouldn't be a first time, since hadn't actually bought condoms since he'd moved to the cabin. For now, though, the kiss was enough — almost too much, in fact. He was starved for intimacy, for knowing that he had someone in his arms and that person wanted him just as much.

He broke the kiss to taste Sherlock's skin, feeling the heat of his throat before he licked right over Sherlock's pulse. The answering exhale was just shaky enough to hint at a desire for more. Experimentally, John bit, being over-careful because it had been so long and he didn't want to hurt Sherlock. A shiver passed through Sherlock, who shifted and got one foot between John's, pushing his hips forward as his thigh abruptly pressed against John's erection.

Heat arced between them, scorching away another layer of John's fears and reservations. He stopped counting the reasons not to do this and started thinking instead about the sofa, which was close to the kitchen, versus the bed, which was much larger. He dropped his hands, feeling the back pockets of Sherlock's jeans and tense muscle and tight curves, and braced himself before pulling Sherlock's hips against his body.

With a muttered curse, Sherlock pushed John back a step and twisted, crowding him back with another overwhelming, devastating kiss. John's shoulders pressed back against the wall beside the pantry and Sherlock pulled his hair, tipping his head back, so he could run his tongue up John's throat, the motion translating into a sinuous press of their bodies from knees to chests.

Sherlock's free hand braced on the wall beside John's shoulder, and John's breath stuttered, catching like gears knocked out of alignment before he stopped breathing. Suffocated and trapped, he felt panic rise up through him in a single heartbeat. He pushed, awkwardly at first, hands sliding over a soft cashmere sweater, before his instincts took over. His second push was a solid shove to the sternum, a twist of his hips putting strength behind the blow that freed him. He wrenched away from the wall, getting out into open space, gasping in a breath as though he'd been drowning.

_Sherlock,_ he thought, realising what he'd done. Thank God he hadn't actually hurt Sherlock, who was standing warily back, his eyes locked to John's. He stood balanced and ready, as though prepared to be attacked. He hadn't run, though. He hadn't fled the cabin or tried to barricade himself in the bedroom, nor had he fought back.

John exhaled, confusion snapping through him as if his fraying thoughts were finally breaking under the tension. He realised his left hand was on his gun — thankfully, he hadn't actually drawn it — but he couldn't pry his fingers away. He could still taste Sherlock's kiss, and his throat had a single icy strip etched into the skin where the open air froze the path Sherlock had licked.

Abruptly, he turned and rushed out of the house, needing to escape himself.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This brings the version of Northwest Passage to a conclusion, due to 's rating policy. The story continues, with an explicit rating, at Archive of our Own. Thanks to 's ridiculous policy on linking, I can't put a direct link in, so to find the story, either remove all spaces from the following short link:

bit. ly / TjScTc

Or google Archive of our Own, go to that website (it's a dot-org), and search for Northwest Passage by Kryptaria.

Sorry this is so complicated, but actually censors out links to competitor sites.

Thank you for reading! This story has been a fantastic exploration of character development, and all of it was based on very simple prompt: John is Canadian. I never expected to come close to 90,000 words full of love and friendship, heartbreak and joy, but I'm thrilled to be able to present this to my readers. Again, thank you!


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